Living in a walkable city means my weekly shop is a few hours of walking or biking instead of being stuck in traffic, and I'm only mildly tired afterwards since I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags. Since I have no car related costs I can afford more fresh food, a healthier diet, and I can afford to be more choosy about the ethics of what I buy. There's a twice weekly farmers market about a ten minute walk away, and quiet walks through parks to get to the shops. Living somewhere with car centric infrastructure, as I used to, this lifestyle was far less feasible.

Have your experiences been different with moving to walkable/bikeable cities? Any questions or points to be made? I'm not very up on the theory side of city planning, but my experiences line up with the whole "fuck cars" thing.

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[–] 52 points 2 years ago (10 children)

One of the best things about living in a walkable place is that the concept of a weekly shop is basically dead - access to grocery shopping is available enough that I can go as many or as few times to shop as is warranted.

Granted, this usually adds up to once a week or less, but yeah. Big benefit.

This is an important concept to be imparted on those who do not understand the benefits of walkable places - a frequent question is how they can manage to complete their weekly shop without a car, since the car is in their mind needed to transport enough groceries to last the entire week. This is of course necessitated by the fact that their ideal location to shop for groceries is a significant distance away that can only be completed in a practical manner by car.

With where I live, this is unwarranted because I have access to convenient grocery shopping about 200 meters away by foot, and for ideal pricing I go 1 km away on a bike with storage on the rack. I do not want for variety either, I've got multiple speciality shops and 5 different grocery chains within a 1 km radius.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    Notjustbikes had a whole episode on how nice it is to decide each day what you want to eat, and just buy it on the way home.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    It's nice to be able to, done get me wrong, but if I could stock up for 6 months I would. Who wants to waste time getting groceries every day?

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    it's not a waste of time lol, are you stuck in car-centric thinking where getting groceries is an hour long affair? for me it takes like 20 minutes to buy stuff of which most of it is just getting to the store, and i don't even live that close to the store!

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    For me it’s a short drive to the store - would be bikable except for the hill. However grocery shopping is still a chore, and it still takes over an hour out of my life. Yes, I’d try to minimize that, regardless of what transportation I used.

    Over COViD I invested in a chest freezer, and I already had significant storage, so now i can bulk buy more things. Already the only reason I go so often is fresh vegetables: if I could get them to last more than a week, you bet I’d make fewer shopping trips

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    I'm personally a big fan of finishing up work, looking through the cupboards, polling the kids and wife, and then walking 5 minutes to the grocery store to get a few things for dinner. Gets me out of the house, and since I work from home mostly I find it helps me make a nice mental and physical separation between work and the evening. Fresh baked sourdough from a local baker is an added plus.

    I realize there's an immense level of privilege I enjoy to be able to do this (namely living in a very metro area, and usually having no commute), but having also lived in Europe and India for periods of my life it's sad to see there this type of daily shopping is way more normal and commonplace.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    is a few hours of walking

    Hmmm, I dont think people want to walk for hours to complete a grocery shopping trip? Walkable means you’re done in 20mins max, that’s a reasonable standard given what some urban areas already have.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    I double checked the stats. It was more like 1.5 hours total walking over 2 miles, though I was out and about four 3 hours. I wanted to go to a bigger shop outside the city centre and the farmer's market in town, had to stop at home to empty the cart. If I was less choosy I could do it in 20, but the shop near me is a little depressing.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Fucking hell… I’ll walk all day for fun but I HATE grocery shopping, I’m not walking an hour each way and carrying shit… I’m so lucky to have a little bodega about three minutes away from me, where I can pick up a bunch of dope stuff. But actual grocery shopping? I noticed the community I’m commenting it (I only browse /all/) but I’m driving a few minutes, not hauling all that back over a 30+ minute walk.

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    [–] 29 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'm most interested in the Dinosaur Quiz.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    why are cucumbers wrapped in plastic? WHY ARE THEY WRAPPED IN PLASTIC?

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  • [–] [S] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I dunno man, they literally aren't sold any other way in this whole country AFAIK. It was the same in the states, the only ones they sell out of plastic are the gross ones with thick skin

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    [–] 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Not that you posted to be judged on your weekly shop, but given you're on this sub and interested in social issues, thought you might want to know that brewdog are kinda arseholes to their staff:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/brewdog-staff-craft-beer-firm-letter

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A few hours!? I live in a walkable city and the nearest store is 3-4 minutes and 3 others within 20 minutes.

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    [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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    [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Did you drink half of the hot sauce on the way home?

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    [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Got thirsty on the trip home and drank a third of the Sriracha and most of the soy sauce? We've all been there

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I live in NYC. It's pretty great.

    I can walk a couple minutes to some bodegas. A couple more minutes to some small groceries. Looking at the map, there's a couple supermarkets I forgot existed within 15 minutes of walking, in addition to the two I usually go to. There's also other useful stuff like pharmacies, hardware stores, libraries, and so on. This isn't a fancy or especially expensive neighborhood.

    I have a hand cart for when I want to buy something heavy.

    I haven't had a car for like 15 years. I have no regrets. None of the "But what if it rains??" fears have ever been a problem. I can only remember twice in 15 years I needed to borrow someone's car to move stuff.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    I can’t even imagine. Where I grew up, the closest gas station was a 10 minute drive. No way were you walking anywhere to buy some thing.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Ever since I first lived in the city center during nursing school I always make it a priority to live somewhere walkable with public transport. But I do sacrifice apartment space for it.

    Right now I have several supermarkets (including Aldi) and a tram stop in my immediate walking distance. I do all my shopping by foot and I guess I would have to go twice for that amount OP carried home on their bike.

    But I have to say, that I mostly drink tap water (+Tea/Koffee) which is very good quality at my location. If I had to carry crates of water and other beverages it would be much harder. Not everyone has that choice unfortunately.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    @norimee @Gradually_Adjusting Another problem of the politics of austerity and obsession with low taxes at any cost. We’ve defunded water infrastructure almost as much as we’ve defunded public transit. There’s no excuse for a wealthy society to create an environment where many of its residents don’t feel safe drinking tap water and access to any tap water in major cities is periodically cut off by 100 year old pipes predictably breaking.

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    [–] 6 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    Look at Richie Rich over here, able to afford groceries and a city apartment.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Your grocery store sells just loose Pokémon cards? The ones around here have people fist fighting for them.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A few hours for your weekly shopping??? Bruh, you are throwing your life away

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