[tstenner]

I live in a walkable quarter and I can reach three full supermarkets and 2 specialty supermarkets within 5 minutes. Doesn't matter whether I need to stock up on milk, vegetables or hand peeled shrimp in garlic sauce, I can get it. Same with public schools (5 within a 2 mile radius), childcare (3), hospitals (2) and the park.

[card_zero]

I don't get the argument either. Perhaps if you can't walk very far? If I put half an hour into walking I can easily buy all the essentials, such as a crash cymbal, oil of violets, steel nibs for my dip pen, a CD player, and a teapot.

[Insanity]

I live in a metropolitan area and can walk to many stores within a 30 minute radius. (First supermarket is less than 5 minutes away).

But there is the added complication of weight. I can’t buy food for a week without driving there. Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

[willlma]

30 minutes is on the longer side, but I think part of the point of walkable grocery runs is that you don't buy a week's worth of food like you do in a car. When I lived in Paris, I'd happily pop out to buy whatever I needed for a single meal. I had so many grocery stores within a 5-minute walk. Now that I'm in SF, I buy for the week (on my bike with panier bags) because the grocery stores I like are far from my home.

[oblio]

It's an infrastructure thing. With the right regular/cargo bike or even better, an ebike/cargo ebike, 30-40kg of groceries per run is super doable.

> Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

Do you buy a TV more than once every 5-10 years? You can rent a small van or whatever.

[Insanity]

You definitely need infrastructure for that. Biking infrastructure in North American cities is.. not great. Definitely viable in some of the EU ones though.

[mike50]

Personally owned folding shopping carts exist.

[Insanity]

Used to do this in Belgium. Still less convenient than driving, and kinda annoying to use during a Canadian winter.

And again, more limited space.

I commute by walking (1h per day) and typically avoid the car when possible, but for groceries there’s just no way I’d go back to walking to and fro.

[cogman10]

For those to be effective, you do need good walking infrastructure.

I'd grab one of those except for the fact that I don't have a sidewalk connecting me to the grocery store. Totes end up working better for me as a result.

[SkiFire13]

> Doesn't matter whether I need to stock up on milk, vegetables or hand peeled shrimp in garlic sauce

I don't even consider those when shopping online.

[jstanley]

Ok but that doesn't come close to the variety of products you can buy online.

[hx8]

I think this is the point I was trying to make, but didn't make as clearly as I wanted.

Sure I could buy two or three different types of keyboards within walking distance, but none of them used my favorite mechanical switches. I was constantly facing choices where I would either need to travel by vehicle to a speciality store (train, bus or car), or I would order the item in. Judging by the flow of packages into my multi-residential building others were facing the same choice.

[no-name-here]

> none of them used my favorite mechanical switches

One of the major points(/claims?) of the OP article is that fewer choices is better, pointing to how Costco has just 4k SKUs (paragraphs 4, 5, 6, and some within later paragraphs). <shrug>

[danny_codes]

Sure, but 98% of what you buy is is either in the set of SKUs near you or substitutable for them. Near you only applies if you live among actual density of course.

[tstenner]

Ironically I found my current keyboard (a quite nice Cherry) in a store near me. For specialty parts where it doesn't make sense to have to them sitting around in stores everywhere online shopping is still allowed, but I only need to order something every few weeks

[throw1234567891]

As you have to carry everything, how often do you go shopping?

[gcanyon]

Maybe I'm unusual, but I live in NYC, with a grocery store a two minute walk away, a Target and Trader Joe's a three minute walk away, and a Whole Foods a four minute walk away. (and various bodegas within minutes as well)

I went to that grocery store twice yesterday (picked up a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water to go to the movies, then later some potatoes and sour cream for dinner). I'm going in a few minutes to get eggs for lunch. So three times in the last 24 hours :-)

[chrsw]

It's not unusual, but most people can't afford to live in NYC.

[gcanyon]

You're reminding me of the Yogi Berra quote (paraphrasing): "New York is so expensive no one lives there anymore."

You're not wrong, but millions (literally) of people do afford to live in NYC. I live in Harlem, which is more fun and more affordable than many areas.

[chrsw]

I didn't mean nobody lives there. I meant if you plucked random people from all over the country and told them to relocate to NYC, odds are they would need a massive income increase to survive. And even then, it would be touch-and-go for most.

I'm from Harlem, and other parts of NYC. I moved out to pursue a career in an industry that is relatively non-existent in the NYC metro area. If I moved back now I could probably afford it on my current salary. But there are no jobs there for what I do. And if there was a bigger tech industry in NYC the costs would likely be even higher.

[Broken_Hippo]

not who you were asking, but I walk to the store and carry my groceries home. Usually, twice a week or something. It's great. 10 minute walk each way, approximately, and never more than I can easily carry. I buy for two people. I'd go more often if I shopped for more. I do occasionally visit other stores - once or twice a month - because they have different selection of goods. To be fair, I'm still carrying the stuff because I walk or use a bus for most of my transportation needs.

It means my fridge can be smaller because I don't need to keep as much in there. It means it is really easy to shop whatever is on sale - I have two grocery stores near me. I rarely have vegetables that go bad because I can just buy the stuff I need. I can just stop on the way home from work if I'm working the day shift.

I did this for a while when I lived in the states, too, in a small town. I had a similar experience, but it was far less convenient and really only doable because I was in such a small town and lived alone.

[yw3410]

Similar - realistically, unless you're stuck at home in a city, you can also plan to stop off somewhere on your way back from some event. If you mostly walk/public transport the overhead of this is very low.

If your events are regular, then you don't need to do the research each time either; and it becomes maybe an extra five or ten minutes.

[frrlpp]

You clearly have no family

[Broken_Hippo]

I clearly said I buy for two and would go more often if I shopped for more. Many, many people with families do this.

I'm in Norway. Vehicles are expensive, children (regardless of age) are used to going outside and going to the stores. It is a common situation in larger cities. Heck, elementary children are often enough at the store unsupervised. I'm not sure why you think a 20-30 minute car ride plus at least an hour at the store is worse than a 20 minute round trip to the store with a 10-15 minute store break is bad, even if it is a few times a week. And even that can be avoided by just spending a little time on your way home from work.

[tstenner]

I have a family of four and we manage just fine. The kids aren't toddlers any more (which only means that we can't put everything in the bottom layer of the stroller), but when they come to the age where they eat a week's shopping in a single sitting they will be old enough to take over a few shopping trips on their own.

[s1artibartfast]

yeah, I think people come at this from very different life expectations. It is hard to take a toddler, a weeks groceries, and 50lb bag of dog food on a bike or bus.

Living without a car is easily possible, lots of parts of europe do it. They do it by living in small aparments, consuming less with more staples

[tstenner]

Depends on how much we need. There are two car sharing stations next to the super markets when we need to stock up on long lasting basics, but I typically cover half a week (full family) in a trip. The nice thing is that when you absolutely need something (either for a recipe or when one of the kids has a sudden urgent urge) it's no big deal

[victorbjorklund]

Jesus no wonder Americans are so fat when they don’t even have strength enough to carry their shopping bags

[throw1234567891]

It’s funny that you assume I’m a fat American. Don’t assume so much. And what does Jesus have to do with it.

[victorbjorklund]

I never assumed that you're fat. I have no idea what your BMI is. It was more a comment about Americans not being able to use their bodies to carry their own groceries. Of course being lacy and not able to do physical work can still mean that you're skinny. It wasn't a comment about you personally but about your culture.

[throw1234567891]

I mean, you assume I'm American.