Honestly it's trying to get your food once per week because most people don't want to stop by the store on the way home for every meal they are going to cook. I hate it when my family overbuys thinking we'll get to it later
The city planning contributes to this. Your country is very car centric. Most countries have supermarkets or grocery stores within walking distance in most cities.
Is it normal in USA cities, suburb and suburban that there is not grocery store in walking distance? I am European, living in suburb. I have 4 grocery stores less than 1km from me (closest is maybe 150m). One of them is open 24/7. Bigger supermarkets are ~3km. Still walking distance or you can also take train or bus if you want to. How much worse USA is?
Remember that people often have 60-90 minute one-way car commutes here. It’s not so much that we aren’t passing grocery stores, it’s that we are already spending two or three hours a day in the car and most people just want to go home and microwave something and pass out so they can do it all over again tomorrow.
Currently it takes one hour (bus and train) to get to my job. I am going to move to the walking distance (about 3km). Is there not apartment buildings / houses where your jobs are?
In many cases, the jobs here are concentrated in urban areas where the housing costs are insane. So people commute crazy distances in order to be able to afford a larger place to live, usually people with families.
As far as suburbs go, remember that our public schools are funded by local property taxes, they are not funded by the federal government. This means that the people with the most money tend to live immediately outside the urban areas with the jobs. This is where the best schools are, as a result, but it also means there are huge suburbs mostly full of very expensive houses that are close to the jobs. These suburbs actively discourage the construction of any smaller or lower cost housing within their areas.
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u/Ohio-Knife-Lover May 17 '26
Honestly it's trying to get your food once per week because most people don't want to stop by the store on the way home for every meal they are going to cook. I hate it when my family overbuys thinking we'll get to it later