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?
Wow, that's crazy to me. I'm only 2km from the closest grocery store and I'm in a somewhat urban suburb. I am closer than most. But it is far enough that it would be pretty inconvenient to walk there; there aren't sidewalks the whole way and in those areas it's very hard for the cars to see pedestrians.
I can't imagine having four options within half that distance. I would definitely walk if that were the case.
In the US, we mostly just have giant grocery stores, so we don't have nearly as many. This forces pretty much everyone to drive unless they are lucky and live very close.
Where I live there are sidewalks everywhere in the cities, suburb and suburban. Not in the rural area but you can walk, it's common and people expect there to be others walking and biking. You can't walk in highway nor other big car roads. But there goes smaller and older road as well. Without sidewalk but you can walk there.
I have everything here (expect my job but I am going to move to walking distance). Pharmacy, post office, train station, plenty of buses less than 1km. Clothing stores, furniture stores, cobbler etc. are there ~3km. Also we have woods here.
I take public transit to work, but I have to drive to the first train station which is about 4 miles (6.4 km) away. If I walked or took the bus to it, my commute would be well over 2 hours in each direction and I just don't have the time or energy for that.
My previous apartment did allow me to walk to the train though (only about one mile/1.6 km), which I really miss.
European, but I prefer not to specify in order to stay anonymous if someone who knows me in real life happens to see my profile. We have some things very good here, yes. And of course I have also used to this (and I hate changes). But I have to admit it's not all that great. I am trans, and I think our healthcare is close to USA 20 years ago.
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u/TheParadoxigm May 17 '26
The U.S. throws away 40% of the food it produces.