[turtledove]

Find a space you enjoy. I enjoy getting able to walk to the grocery store, bookshop, several cafes, many restaurants, hair salon, library, tattoo parlor, beer shop, movie theater, etc.

How many of those places can you visit without a car?

[ars]

I actually have a bunch of those places I can visit without a car, and I never do, because they are all small, and don't have the selection I want. The few I do visit are more expensive than they should be because their rent is very high.

So I drive about 10 minutes and go to the larger stores, the selection is better and the prices are better because the land is not so crowded.

I have family who live in a very dense city without a car - every time I visit they "stock up" and go on multiple car trips with me to visit slightly distant stores to buy all the stuff that is cheaper, or hard to transport without a car.

The car isn't going away because it's simply too useful. No matter how hard you try to make a city that supposedly doesn't need one, the car option is still better.

[bombcar]

Heh the only one missing from that list in my small town is a bookstore; the Walmart book section doesn't really cut it.

One thing people can get confused on is that density doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with mixed usage - you could have relatively low density areas that are extremely mixed so there's always basically everything within 15 minute walk, and you could have very high density apartment buildings with nearly no services to speak of.

Suburbs are especially bad at this because they segregate the living and the sleeping areas far apart from each other (but relatively short by car).

[RHSeeger]

I thought his argument was pro-parking. As such, asking about what he can get to without a car is irrelevant, because he doesn't want to _be_ without a car.

[turtledove]

He was saying density is bad. I was suggesting the opposite - it affords access to many and varied services.