It really depends on the context of the building imo. If you have a grocery store with like a few spaces that are always full, vs one with a bunch of spaces, someone who is planning a big grocery load will probably opt to drive their car for two minutes to the big lot one vs walk 10 mins to the one without parking and walk back with a gallon of milk and all their groceries for their family of 4 for a week.
What you find in other countries that are denser is that people not only buy less things per trip and take more trips, but they are also cooking fewer meals at home than Americans and tend to eat out more for their meals. I think two things need to happen for that behavior to happen with Americans: shorter commutes so you actually have time to run to the grocery store more often than once a week, and more buying power from wages so you can actually regularly afford food you didn't personally prepare. Until those things happen, most americans will continue doing their errands once a week when they finally have time, and saving money making things at home vs ordering more prepared food and having a therefore smaller need for so many groceries in the first place.
Makes sense. I didn't consider that people in the US have way more place at home to store food. And I understand that people don't have grocery stores that close to their house/apartment, so they fill the car as much as they can.
The grocery store example is very helpful to illustrate how its not just the quality, safety, and practicality (e.g. time) of the walk that leads to most Americans driving- there is also the fact that the whole process and experience is predicated on the expectation that you will have a personal car.
Specifically: In the parts of W. Europe I have visited I observed mostly small grocery stores (esp in towns and cities) that folks visit daily or nearly so for food. People may stop on thei walk home to get dinner items each night! Contrast that with the U.S., where you are more likely to encounter a large grocery store- except perhaps in the densest inner city (but then maybe no grocery store at all, which is another story)- where people visit once a week or so. When people go to the grocery store, they stock up. Stores are optimized for buying multiple (more than you can carry at once) bags of groceries, which you then necessarily would load into your car and drive home.
Most folks would not willingly opt to take a long risky walk through unpleasant surroundings, traverse a giant parking lot not designed for walkers, then have to march through a large grocery store for many minutes to leave with just what one could carry. Sure, folks could bring a personal hand trolley or something but this really does not address other underlying problem.
So, in the case of grocery stores the basic culture of shopping at a very large center less frequently would also have to shift for people to leave their cars. And, I would argue, so it goes with many things. Shifts to a more pedestrian-oriented culture and environment may happen with time or in certain areas, but I don't think it would be simple, quick, or widespread any time soon in the U.S. for reasons that go beyond sidewalks.
I think the concept of not doing a months worth of grocery shopping for a family of four at a time is w what's foreign. going to the store for pasta and eggs and toast and nothing more is a waste of a grocery trip in some people's eyes. Those people love to shop at Costco and Sam's, and have a SUV's worth of groceries each time they do a trip. It's not a wrong way to live, but if that's how you live, not driving a vehicle with enough cargo space to hold a large body around means it doesn't make sense how you'd get any groceries. Doing that large a run is exhausting, so you don't do it very often, which means when you do go, you have to do a huge run which makes it suck. Smaller more frequent trips is shorter and mute frequent, which has its own, different problems.
I can choose between 5 supermarkets in a walking distance. And they are all busy.
America is just not denselly populated enough to really make it worth your while to build a supermarket ever 3 miles. Too much empty space so people refuse to live efficiently.
I assume this is only a concern because in America you're forced to make grocery trips once a week because of the suburban layout and car-centric development instead of getting fresh food off the corner store every other day like most countries.
And maybe one more thing: it can depends where you live. In EU many can buy groceries by walking 5mins to nearby store, when in us it's a 20-30 min car trip, maybe this can also be a factor
Hmmmm I wonder if they will try the bulk model. Americans have very large fridges and grocery shop once a week. Grocery stores are often a 20-30 minute drive away. In my European country people have small fridges and may buy groceries several times per week. Grocery stores are a 5-10 minutes away.
Agreed on the design of most grocery store in the US. Most people can't stop in quick on a normal daily walk, because the inherent space-inefficiency of cars means a long detour to hit multiple stops, whereas with walking it's an easy in-and-out grab.
However, even when patiently explaining this difference, it is a mental leap too far to consider any change. Not only is it the physical design of the stores and car-only infrastructure, a lot of it has to do with package sizing and pricing structure, as another poster pointed out; smaller quantities get massive markups in US stores, for no good reason other than once they've got you in a store, you're fairly captive and they want to extract the maximum amount of money from you so that you don't end up elsewhere.
Until people experience it, and realize that having a five person family is no challenge at all for this style of life, it's hard to give them the picture.
When population density goes up, you are more likely to live close enough to your grocery store to make multiple smaller visits and make quick visits for one-off items you might need. I rarely ever buy more at the grocery store than I can carry on my own and I find the smaller more frequent trips much more convenient than having to plan around one large trip to a more distant location.
> From my experience, Americans often do grocery once every couple of weeks, because the super market is usually a non-trivial drive away.
Overwhelming majority of Americans live less than 20 minutes drive from a proper grocery story (i.e. not a gas station convenience store), and most probably live 10 minutes drive. In my metropolitan area of 4 million, I can't think of a place that's more than 10 minutes from a large supermarket.
Americans don't do grocery shopping very often simply because it's such a waste of time: there are 5 large supermarkets (two Safeways, one QFC, one Whole Foods and one local chain) 5 minutes drive from my home, and there's also Costco 10 minutes drive. Despite that, I go grocery shopping once a week, because it usually takes an hour. Doing this more often would replace one hour-long trip with three 45 minutes trip. Since the drive is only 5 minutes, living literally next to them wouldn't change my habits much.
Also, let me assure you that most Europeans don't live in 5 minutes walking distance from grocery stores, so the travel time here is not what makes the habits different.
If going to get groceries only takes you a couple minutes each way then it becomes much more reasonable to carry a backpack full of fresh groceries rather than a car full of food that will become stale.
Density enables rapid transport as well as many more shops in a given area.
I've lived extensively in most population densities available in the US. When you are in a very dense environment like Manhattan, people simply don't buy quantities that large from local stores, and the vast majority of apartments don't have the storage space to accommodate for the giant sized quantities that suburbanites buy at Costco every day. The end result is that living in Manhattan, Brooklyn, western Queens etc., you're basically walking every day down to local stores and lugging relatively small bags back. People in the city tend to be pretty trim and fit as a result.
I currently live in a rural-density zoned part of the US, and the car is basically the only access one has to virtually anything. Businesses here can pretty confidently state that close to 100% of their customer base arrives by car.
I think the whole idea of having to drive to get groceries is a fairly uniquely American thing. Here in the UK in a medium sized town I have multiple places to buy food within walking distance, from a corner shop (small, has convenience items only), up to a full sized supermarket.
Living in the US and within walking distance (5-10 min walk) of a grocery store, I'd much rather drive because I can buy more things, thus making fewer trips over the month. It's the same 5 min by car, but it's just a lot more convenient. I have plenty of exercise, so I prefer to not carry a bunch of bags to stay fit...
It's highly situational, but speaking broadly the US usually it's a "5 minute drive vs a 25 minute walk" situation.
But even if you live 5-10 minutes from the supermarket many people will still drive because everything is designed around people driving. For example, it's very common to lack sidewalks and even when there are sidewalks, protected crossings can be sparse.
So a 10 minute walk to the store can involve you having to walk in the street or in the mud and grass, cutting across the street where there's no crossing signal, and having to walk through a busy parking lot to actually get to the building.
And even once you're in the store things are designed around cars. The size of packaging and the quantities that people normally buy in are based on the idea that Americans take their car to the grocery store once a week and fill their trunk space with groceries.
Its worth noting that in walkable cities people shop more frequently as a rule. If where you do your shopping is within a short walk of your home it becomes practical to buy stuff most days. In fact if you are traveling to and from work or anywhere else its likely you will pass by somewhere you can buy your groceries as you go about your business so there is zero additional travel time added by buying groceries every day.
If you are only concerned with what groceries you will require in the next 24 hours then carrying the required groceries for a large family isn't such a big deal.
And if grocery shopping every day sounds like an ordeal remember that everyone else is doing it too so generally everyone is only buying a handful of items. No trolleys piled high with stuff.
The US is wildly low-density outside of the major metros. It's one of the better things about this Nation.
Conversely, the very dense portions are built for cars and facilities are relatively close but still require a car to reach on the whole.
I live an a very dense major urban area, just outside of the city limits, and there isn't a single walkable store that isn't a convenience store with a gas station, a drug store, a rare butcher, a bar, a liquor store, a beer distributor, a tobacco store, a laundromat, and a pizza shop that serves bad food. And most of those aren't a short walk, though I need none of them aside from the butcher.
The grocery store and anything else absolutely requires a car. The trend isn't toward more such facilities, but less. Social (crime) and economic pressures are causing the food desert to expand. I know people who live 3/4 further away from me, across dense urbanity (which is a lot to travel, especially for older people), who need to travel to the suburban food store that I go to. There isn't space between it and them to build another grocery store. Less adaptable and more vulnerable stores have closed.
I agree that there is a limit to dense usability given any metric, but the dense areas are already designed. There isn't an option to redesign them as they represent vast expanses of residential homes. I don't see exurban areas filling in any time soon, especially given fuel / electric costs and economic pressures in addition to higher interest rates that will slow residential construction for the forseeable future. Also, they are truly vast.
Maybe there are local dynamics at play (we are in a city in The Netherlands). But my wife has been doing the grocery shopping (since I don't have a driver's license). We would normally shop every day, but she is now going every 3-4 days. And after the initial 3-4 days of hoarding, the grocery stores are far less busy, probably because people are buying for multiple days at a time. She has had no problem keeping the necessary 1.5-2m distance.
What you find in other countries that are denser is that people not only buy less things per trip and take more trips, but they are also cooking fewer meals at home than Americans and tend to eat out more for their meals. I think two things need to happen for that behavior to happen with Americans: shorter commutes so you actually have time to run to the grocery store more often than once a week, and more buying power from wages so you can actually regularly afford food you didn't personally prepare. Until those things happen, most americans will continue doing their errands once a week when they finally have time, and saving money making things at home vs ordering more prepared food and having a therefore smaller need for so many groceries in the first place.
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