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Comment by zzzeek | Hacker News Reader

I've lived extensively in most population densities available in the US. When you are in a very dense environment like Manhattan, people simply don't buy quantities that large from local stores, and the vast majority of apartments don't have the storage space to accommodate for the giant sized quantities that suburbanites buy at Costco every day. The end result is that living in Manhattan, Brooklyn, western Queens etc., you're basically walking every day down to local stores and lugging relatively small bags back. People in the city tend to be pretty trim and fit as a result.

I currently live in a rural-density zoned part of the US, and the car is basically the only access one has to virtually anything. Businesses here can pretty confidently state that close to 100% of their customer base arrives by car.

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I bought four gallons of milk at my last shopping trip, this will last my family a week or so. I also bought five dozen eggs which might last two weeks. Perhaps the reason people in high-density areas shop in smaller quantities is partly that high-density areas price out families like mine who would be shopping every day without the ability to efficiently buy in larger quantities.

In the city you could just buy food as you needed it. Your kids could get a gallon of milk at the store in the morning and chug it on the way to school. Same for the eggs. You would just pop over to the egg man who would quickly prepare you a 8 egg omelette and side order of quiche.

and how much all that will cost vs buying in bulk.

>> You would just pop over to the egg man

His name was Yauch.

When you have more than a couple people in a house, this would mean shopping continuously. And the quantities you'd need for a single day would be more than you could carry effectively without a trunk. (I moved to where I am from a dense city with transit too, it makes more sense for me to be in a smaller city where my kids have a yard to play in and space to plant a garden than to live in a dense urban environment)

In this case I would suggest trying out grocery delivery services like Ocado in the UK.

this is incorrect. A significant proportion of high density environments include people living well below the poverty line. In New York City, they shop at places called "bodegas". They often have access to public assistance like food stamps, but they are otherwise consuming those products at "high density" prices. They dont buy in large quantities for financial reasons but also for the "high density makes quantity buying largely impractical" reasons I mentioned above.

doable with a cargo bike as well fwiw;

I myself am doing fine with one or two backpacks a week (on the way home by bike). 2-3km distance to supermarket

When I was living 200m away from a supermarket, I used to buy spontaneously when I wanted to cook something

You save a lot of money buying those larger quantities.

You save a lot of money by not owning cars.

Only if you don't value your time. Either you're paying even more for taxis and rideshares than you would to own your car, or you're spending an hour on trips that would take 10 minutes by car.

I think it's actually faster to get to central London from me on the tube than by car, not even counting looking for parking. And hell, on the tube I can read, listen to a podcast, code, or even call family. Can't do most of that in a car.

Yeah, but you can't easily store it in high density areas where square footage is expensive. Personally, I think this is a significant negative for city living, and a reason why I prefer the suburbs.

Depends. Meat, maybe.

Toilet paper? Doubtful. You are paying mortgage + property tax on the pantry space used to store it.

Not to mention gas to drive and get it. And vehicle insurance. And car maintenance.

A bidet seat (heated water, $150 at Home Depot now days) has a better ROI.

> $150 at Home Depot

Good luck with that. Even with an off-brand, you're looking at much closer to twice that if you want any kind of heated water.

Home Depot actually has their own feature reduced SKUs from popular brands.

But checking prices, they are around $250.

> You are paying mortgage + property tax on the pantry space used to store it.

If you have the space anyway, you're not paying any extra to store stuff in it. And it's expensive enough to move that it's not economical to do so just to have the lower payments from 1 fewer square foot.

> Not to mention gas to drive and get it. And vehicle insurance. And car maintenance.

If you stop at the store on the way home from somewhere else that you were going anyway, the additional cost of those things is basically zero.

The alternative is living in an area where you don't have to drive everywhere to get things.

I drive maybe 200 miles a month now. I walk down the street to a supermarket to get toilet paper when I run out.

> I drive maybe 200 miles a month now.

But still pay full insurance presumably?

I've been fighting this with the insurance company ever since the pandemic started. We no longer drive anywhere daily, working from home. But the insurance company wants to maximize profit so they won't approve less than 6000 miles per year, a number they made up, and keep raising prices.

I barely drove 6000 miles a year pre pandemic while living in the suburbs!

And then you end up in a potential lock down situation where you're easily corralled and starved out ala Shanghai

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