Not sure who these people are due to paywall but I personally would love to live in a car free city. Carrying groceries home would be a challenge as well as hardware store trips but those minor inconveniences are more than made up by quality of life improvements
For those who may not watch the video, the premise is that smaller grocery stores are dotted throughout car free areas of Amsterdam which means it’s easier to pop in conveniently for groceries and do smaller grocery runs rather than having to turn grocery shopping into one big haul (and being a pain to carry). That seems pretty amazing to me.
No. You could always travel a bit further to a different store, given the idea is that there are many. Let's say you want to pick up food at an specialty store, but it's too far to walk. Maybe you can bike or take a tram or a subway or a bus. Failing that, there are delivery services that can bring you literally anything you want.
I would argue the opposite, smaller shops scattered around you all within a 15min walk would potentially carry more variety of items between each shop providing more choices.
North American shopping on the otherhand seems to force a person to drive to the closest big box grocery chain generally within a 30-40min car drive. Choice aslo becomes limited to specific brands the chain would carry, and if something is out of stock it generally means driving to the next same chain on the other side of town with no difference in selection of items.
Its also why most people in North America go grocery shopping on the weekends as it's almost a full day activity, even when only wanting to buy milk for example.
7 Comments
assembly@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 279d
Not sure who these people are due to paywall but I personally would love to live in a car free city. Carrying groceries home would be a challenge as well as hardware store trips but those minor inconveniences are more than made up by quality of life improvements
grue@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 279d
Only if you insist on doing it wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk
assembly@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 278d
For those who may not watch the video, the premise is that smaller grocery stores are dotted throughout car free areas of Amsterdam which means it’s easier to pop in conveniently for groceries and do smaller grocery runs rather than having to turn grocery shopping into one big haul (and being a pain to carry). That seems pretty amazing to me.
CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 278d
Doesn’t this force you to basically eat whatever the small grocery store can stock? Conceptually this works ok for monocultural cities.
consumptionone@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 278d
No. You could always travel a bit further to a different store, given the idea is that there are many. Let's say you want to pick up food at an specialty store, but it's too far to walk. Maybe you can bike or take a tram or a subway or a bus. Failing that, there are delivery services that can bring you literally anything you want.
NarrativeBear@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 278d
I would argue the opposite, smaller shops scattered around you all within a 15min walk would potentially carry more variety of items between each shop providing more choices.
North American shopping on the otherhand seems to force a person to drive to the closest big box grocery chain generally within a 30-40min car drive. Choice aslo becomes limited to specific brands the chain would carry, and if something is out of stock it generally means driving to the next same chain on the other side of town with no difference in selection of items.
Its also why most people in North America go grocery shopping on the weekends as it's almost a full day activity, even when only wanting to buy milk for example.
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 279d
NarrativeBear@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 278d
Not to mention the savings from not having to pay for insurance, car maintenance, upkeep, car washes and cost of fuel.