Of course. If in the big picture we want fewer people to need to take a car for each trip, it would be a good idea to have towns and cities where grocery stores and houses are closer together.

And of course not everyone wants to live in such a place, but plenty of people would. And in the US this is fairly rare compared to many other parts of the world.

Who wouldn't want to live close to the grocery store? Here in Dublin I live in a house with gardens front and back, 5km from the center of the city, with a grassy park in front of my house (football field size), yet I can walk to 4 different supermarkets. The furthest is about 15m walk, the nearest is 10m. And I've got a few small convenience shops even closer (like, under 5m walk). This is what I call "perfect", and I don't understand why someone wouldn't want this.

Unfortunately they stopped building communities like this in the 1950s, but they sprawl for miles around Dublin, and I consider myself lucky to be able to live here.

I've visited cities in the Midwest of the US and found them to be like hell. Can't walk anywhere.

Oh I would definitely prefer it. I think a lot of people would. So many Americans haven't lived that life though that it can be hard to imagine.

It also helps if it's not raining, and when there are no slippery surface conditions.

How inefficient is it that your grocery store is 5 miles away? Everyone should have a grocery store within a 5 minute walk of where they live.

A very tiny number of people in the US live a 5 min walk from a grocery store.

Many people live within 5 miles of one, but usually in denser areas where 5 miles could easily take 30-60 min of travel.

>A very tiny number of people in the US live a 5 min walk from a grocery store.

That's exactly the problem. There needs to be more housing built near grocery stores, and more grocery stores built where the housing is, instead of 5 miles away.

Right, but in denser areas it's kind of crazy that more people aren't within 1-2 miles of a grocery store.

In my city, everyone I know lives within 1 mile of a grocery store, but they drive anyway. Many have kids and their groceries take up a lot of space, and they don't have the leisure time to spend on walking anyway.

So how does it work? How do you e.g. get your fresh bread in the morning? Are there some local community bakieries instead?

A small fraction of Americans shop daily for food. For the majority, it's a weekly (or even less frequent) occurrence.

And no, fresh bread is not really a thing, outside of a few urbanish settings. A healthy proportion of bakeries don't even sell bread - only pastries, cakes, etc.

Americans almost never buy fresh bread. We buy packaged bread with preservatives that lasts about a week (much longer if frozen or refrigerated).

Most of us don't go to the grocery store more than once or twice a week. When we do, it's often a big purchase that you can't carry back in your hands or on a small bike. You'd need something with more cargo space.

8km is about 20-35 minutes on a bike depending on infrastructure, I am sure it is zero minutes in many places due to lack of infrastructure. It is extremely cheap to build, and fast, look at Paris it is rapidly becoming a more bicycle friendly city, it is still carmagedon though.

When I grew up we went to a grocery store 5 miles away, even though the closest was only 2 blocks. Once in a while we walked to the close store, but it was so much more expensive than the farther away one that we just about paid for the entire cost of the car just on the grocery savings.

I can't control the prices of the local store, and so it is efficient to have the ability to choose other stores and thus force them to compete on price.

Of course, many people forget that there are folks living in villages / remote areas like you.

I’d never even consider living anywhere where it‘d take me 15 minutes to the grocery store no matter what mode of transport. How long is your commute? I have like ten grocery stores in fifteen minute cycling distance, the closest is two minutes away.

I work from home, so my commute is 0 minutes XD