In normal American suburban traffic, 5 miles is only 7 minutes. A typical person can walk only 1900 feet in that time.
Getting that for everybody would pretty much require paving America with supermarkets. Consider the sizes of some supermarkets near me, roughly estimated in feet: 250x200, 250x250, 250x300. All of these have lots that are nearly 1000x1000, though shared with other stores.
So for walking to be equally fast, ignoring the need to carry groceries, we'd need 50% of the land to be supermarkets.
The benefit of the normal supermarket gets even bigger if there are people in the household who can't reasonably walk to a store on their own. Kids need to be watched. Elderly and obese people have trouble carrying groceries for 1900 feet. Shopping would mean taking trips all day long, one for each bag of groceries, so 1900 feet is really way too far. Cut that down to compensate though, and then there physically isn't enough room for all the required supermarkets!
> Getting that for everybody would pretty much require paving America with supermarkets.
Have you considered that other countries exist, do not look like American suburbs, but also do not consist of 100% end-to-end supermarkets with the odd park or hospital thrown in?
Yep. The time calculation should make my suspicion clear: these people don't actually have a reasonable way to get groceries. They live in what is often called a "food desert".
I think some of them burn lots of time walking and on buses, maybe a couple hours for their groceries. I think some of them live on food from other sources. They could order food to be delivered. They could eat junk food from a vending machine.
Supermarkets exist in urban areas without nuking the city with parking lots. The parking lots are only necessary because we've created this requirement to drive. In fact this is how most of the world does their grocery shopping.
I walk half a mile with two grocery bags, and that's pretty much enough for a week's worth of groceries. Granted, certain bulk items are more annoying and I have to make special trips for them (like a bag of rice) but those are more the exception than the norm.
> Kids need to be watched. Elderly and obese people have trouble carrying groceries for 1900 feet.
For the elderly and obese, they make personal folding shopping carts, which are not an uncommon sight in urban areas.
Suburban Americans also helicopter parent their kids much more aggressively than the norm; when I was a child in New York City, my parents trusted me to not burn down the house if they were gone for half an hour, and once I was attending school it wasn't uncommon for me to fetch something for them from the store. And if you bring kids with you to the store it's basically free labor for walking back with groceries.
7 minutes is disingenuous when you consider the time spent getting into your car at one end, finding a park at the other, walking between the car park and the shop, navigating the (large) shop and waiting at a checkout. All these things are simpler and quicker if you can pop out, walk a few blocks to a (much smaller) corner store and grab the things you need.
For me walking a 2.5km round trip to my nearest local store vs driving the 8km return to my supermarket both take about half an hour if I'm grabbing a couple of things.
In terms of space - no one is suggesting these grocery stores should be the same size as a supermarket - if they are less centralised they need to hold less stock and can be smaller. If you can walk there, you don't need enormous car parks.
It may not be as ~efficient~ but it sure makes for a nicer existence.
The other thing is that with mixed zoning you can get so much more than just grocery stores. My neighborhood has the following within the 1000 feet radius:
- grocery store (x3)
- dentist's office (x2)
- hairdressing salon
- pharmacy
- kingergarten (x2)
- pizzeria
- Starbucks
- music school
- post office
None of this thins ruins the overall experience, because they all are small scale and none of them has their own parking lot - they are located at the ground floor of residential buildings (except music school which has it's own small building). Kindergardens are most interesting case because they both are actually just apartments adapted to their new role, so each of them hosts maybe 20-30 kids.
I used the 5-mile example, but usually it is less. Parking is plentiful right at the door of the supermarket; there is no need to find it.
I've never seen a good answer for how walking is supposed to work for the less-able-bodied. My knee isn't getting better with age.
It's odd to even think of a grocery store that isn't a supermarket. I guess that would be like a Wawa, 7-11, Circle-K, or Walgreens. Those exist in suburbia, but they are nothing like what I expect for normal food shopping.
I can count on being able to buy artichokes, fresh and frozen whole turkey, fresh and dried apricots, asparagus, Bartlett pears, frozen rabbit, fresh cilantro, fresh and dried figs, bean sprouts, and alfalfa sprouts. I can almost count on quinces, dragonfruit (pitaya), and fresh beef heart. Other people can count on what they like, somehow choosing Muenster and rice cakes and tofu.
My examples were less than 5 miles, too. 2.5mi each way to drive vs 0.8mi each way to walk.
I like having both options - I stop at the supermarket on my way home from work for a bigger shop. But when I just need one thing it's great to be able to walk and get it.
Plentiful parking is available at my supermarket door too - but it's a different experience. The need to navigate other cars, the busy intersections which inevitably exist around shopping centres, the larger store with more people - it all creates a larger and more frustrating/stressful experience than a quick walk in the sunshine when I only need a couple of things.
None of those products seem extraordinary for a small grocery store to stock they all sound like staples of any shop - especially the fresh food. If they don't exist in your local stores then that is of course an issue - but it is an issue by design where you live.
I imagine part of the cost if that to achieve the kind of stock levels I have you need a certain population density (I live on the urban/suburban fringe of my city) - and if you live in the suburbs with everyone on a 600m2 block then of course it will be difficult to maintain fresh stock and a large enough customer base. But this article is talking about making cities walkable areas so it doesn't really apply to suburbs anyway.
Getting that for everybody would pretty much require paving America with supermarkets. Consider the sizes of some supermarkets near me, roughly estimated in feet: 250x200, 250x250, 250x300. All of these have lots that are nearly 1000x1000, though shared with other stores.
So for walking to be equally fast, ignoring the need to carry groceries, we'd need 50% of the land to be supermarkets.
The benefit of the normal supermarket gets even bigger if there are people in the household who can't reasonably walk to a store on their own. Kids need to be watched. Elderly and obese people have trouble carrying groceries for 1900 feet. Shopping would mean taking trips all day long, one for each bag of groceries, so 1900 feet is really way too far. Cut that down to compensate though, and then there physically isn't enough room for all the required supermarkets!