[ben_w]

You don't need to be in a city centre for small shops with bike racks.

This is village with a population of a bit less than 3000, which I only know about because I have walked East-West across most of the state of Brandenburg (from Słubice in Poland to the city of Brandenburg) and this trains station was a convenient break point:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3459295,14.2800967,3a,60y,14...

Here's Aberystwyth, where I did my degree, population 13k, nearby villages boost that by about 6k, students by another 8k:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4145833,-4.0848806,3a,75y,19...

I grew up on the south coast of the UK. Which is certainly expensive overall, but it has cheap areas like Leigh Park which used to be entirely council houses (i.e. made for poor people and run by the local council):

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leigh+Park,+Havant,+UK/@50...

[graemep]

One of those shows several cars in the photo and a single bike.

The other two show pedestrianised areas, and all three show pedestrians without any indication of how they go there. When I to to similar areas in my town (pop approx 23k) I have drive there, park, and then walk around.

I have several shops within easy walking distance and many people (including me) do walk to them, but quite a few drive. Few bikes (kids mostly) at shops although leisure cycling is VERY popular here.

One of the nice things about an edge of town area with its own identity as a village is we have a lot of local stuff which is walkable and friendly.

[simgt]

The UK is strange, it's really not bike friendly but you do have rows of small shops outside of city centers and towns have many of them too. France is rather the opposite or simply worse on all aspects in the countryside.

[graemep]

The UK varies a lot. A lot of places are walkable so a mix of public transport (in cities) or car and parking and then walking are common.

I never had a car in London, and would not want to drive in central London. Public transport is faster, less tiring, and while not cheap, is cheaper than running a car.

Living in Cheshire a car is a necessity.

[ben_w]

> One of those shows several cars in the photo and a single bike.

Yes, and? "Cars are popular" is not a surprising claim that anyone has been contradicting, so far as I can see. (Also, Aberystwyth is tiny enough to get around entirely on foot, and hilly enough that bikers have to be exceptionally fit, and yet despite this, bike racks).

> The other two show pedestrianised areas, and all three show pedestrians without any indication of how they go there.

The Edeka in Briesen is one of the other two, I don't see a pedestrianised area, do you mean the car park owing to the open-air market set up in it?

The other one (Leigh Park) is literally in the middle of a typical UK conurbation with, as is normal in the UK, approximately universal pedestrian access. People can walk there easily from their homes, they can cycle, they can drive, they might even take a bus. One thing they're really not likely to do is come from very far away, because the only people who know about Leigh Park are the adjacent parts of the conurbation and they mostly look up their noses at it because it's poor.

[graemep]

The claim was made further up the thread that "I don't know a single person who orders groceries online. Smallish shops with bike racks in front of the door are simply too convenient, seems hard to beat" and I interpreted your photos as supporting that claim.

My point is that it is not "shops with bike racks" that are the alternative to online groceries, it is a mix that definitely involves more use of cars than bikes, plus probably more walking and public transport than bikes too.

[ben_w]

Ah, got it. I missed that interpretation of the surrounding context, that's fair. Looking back at the comment you mention, I see how it could be interpreted as either "e.g." or "exclusively" bikes.

To your point, I agree, it's definitely not just bikes: I could bike to my local stores, I actually walk most of the time. With the "e.g."/"exclusive" split: Back when I was commuting, I did so by bus and train, and would also often go via a shop on the way home. The Briesen example is close to the train station, so my guess is that many of the locals would do likewise.

I'd go further though, we do order online about once every 6-8 weeks, because bulk purchasing 18 litres of soy milk and another 9 of long-life cow milk that way is more convenient than frequent small purchases at the same time as the perishables.