[karaterobot]

Was thinking about this too. A 2D distance map doesn't do it justice, really, because it ignores the non-trivial hill in the middle of your route.

The other thing about Seattle is that you can have a grocery store nearby, but still not really have access to it if you're lower income. We have a lot of premium stores, especially in walkable neighborhoods. When I was a student I lived in Wedgwood, and I had 2 grocery stores within a 5-minute walk: the PCC, and the Metropolitan Market, both places where a week's groceries were about 2-3x as expensive as they were at the nearest Safeway, which was more than 15 minutes away.

Not faulting the creator of this article, as it's an okay rule of thumb, and it's hard to include details like that in a model.

[beoberha]

I own a home very close to the PCC you’re talking about and only ever go there if we forgot something in the large weekly grocery run we do at the QFC. Met Market isn’t really an economical option either, but we do love their pre-made food options for when we don’t feel like eating leftovers.

[karaterobot]

The way I describe Metropolitan Market to people outside Seattle is that it's a just a regular old neighborhood grocery store where you can choose from multiple varieties of foie gras. But it did have some cool stuff in it too, you're right about their pre-made stuff.