[zippergz]

I fear we are part of a small self-selecting group that has chosen the convenience to living in densely populated, well connected cities

I think there's also the issue of differing definitions of "convenience." I used to live in a city where I walked or used public transit to get everywhere. Now I live in a suburb and drive everywhere, and I find most of the things I like to do MORE convenient. Yeah, in the city it was easy to walk to bars and restaurants, but I don't eat out that much, and I'm beyond the age where I want to hang out in bars.

As just one example, I like to cook at home, and grocery shopping when I have to carry everything in my arms is a pain in the butt. I know people like to talk about how much fresher your food is when you buy just what you need every day, and that sounds great, but I have a lot of other things going on in my life. Having to plan time to go to the grocery store every day after work is a hassle. Being able to drive five minutes to the store, park easily, and carry my stuff home in my trunk, is vastly more convenient than what I did when I lived in the city.

Having lived both ways for several years, I will never willingly go back to living in a densely populated city.

[saurik]

I agree with this. I can drive to a store, buy what I want, and then drive home faster than friends of mine who live in San Francisco can even get on a bus to get to their destination. Walking around through crowded urban streets carrying valuable items you just purchased is also sub-ideal. I can buy things that are large or small, or that require refrigeration: no difference. I can make multiple stops without having to carry a ton of stuff through all my subsequent stops, as I can leave the stuff in my car.

My car is essentially a portable home I get to take with me wherever I am: it has first aid equipment, it has water and snacks, and secure storage. If you are optimizing for convenience, the correct choice is to separate things by networks of roads and use cars: that's why they exploded in popularity. You do want to live near where you work, but most of the people commuting long enough distances to make that matter are doing that due to economic issues (cost of living), not due to fundamental requirements for car deployment.

The issue is just that it isn't sustainable: it uses too much energy at too high an externality cost for us all to have this amazing level of convenience. It requires too much land to be paved and too much oil to be burned. But people should not confuse sustainability with convenience: dense urban areas that are not conducive to cars are not "convenient". To the extent to which people who live in them think they are convenient, it is because they don't understand most of the downsides they know about to cars are caused by dense urban environments.

[avn2109]

>> '...dense urban areas that are not conducive to cars are not "convenient'."

I'm carless here in the city, and my very heavy groceries from two different stores are about to be delivered by Instacart. I'm lounging around in my PJ's. If this isn't convenient I don't know what is.

[egypturnash]

On the other hand, if you can walk five minutes to the store, it's insanely easy to keep a tiny pantry full of fresh stuff. Especially if, like me, you're lucky enough to have a weekly farmer's market two blocks from your place.

But like you said, different people have different definitions of "convenience".

[saurik]

It certainly is no easier than someone who can drive less than five minutes to a store: that person can both keep a tiny pantry full of fresh stuff or buy massive loads of bulk items without issue. Essentially, you have made an argument for why "it isn't so bad, as you can mitigate some of the downsides", but haven't shown a situation where it is actually more "convenient" (which I emphasize, as it is all sorts of other things, such as more "sustainable").

[emj]

Five minutes is too little time too warrant a car drive, usually it's actually 10 minute door-to-door when you are talking about a car transportation. But sure if you live in a wasteland of parking spaces and highways I guess it might be faster.

[sounds]

Would a same-day delivery service change that for you? (I'm thinking of Amazon's offering but there are others.)