Is there any business you would frequent - a pub, restaurant, grocer, etc. - that’s within, say, a 10 minute walk of where you live? I grew up in a city, yet everything was more than a 10 minute walk from my home.

Have you visited a place where there were multiple stores within a 10 minute walk? Once I started living in places like that, my way of life changed in ways I never would have predicted.

Walking home from work meant I walked right by a grocery store, and I could grab something quick. Would I always? Nope. Did I sometimes still do big grocery store trips? Sure. And would I sometimes even bring my car if I had a bunch of stuff? Yes, because I lived up a tall hill.

The reason I mention this is that your well-established may simply change in unexpected ways that you never would have imagined.

The traditional model of grocery shopping in Europe is daily. That's what our grandparents did - as it has been since the Romans invented the urbe and exported the concept around the continent. The famous stereotype of French people biking with their baguette under an arm, is because people did buy bread every day.

Then women started working more and more, and they had less time to shop for food, so the supermarkets happened here too - much later than in the US though, because of space and legal constraints. But there is still an attraction for the traditional way of life that keeps a significant amount of smaller and more central stores in business, keeping shopping more distributed: one day you buy fish, the next you buy meat, and everything fits in your bag.

Generally I just shop more often, my nearest grocery store is 3 doors down. There are two bigger ones 3 mins walk away, and a big one 10 mins walk away. When you're talking distances like that, buying more than you could carry doesn't make much sense. And if I did, I'd use Ocado or something.

I never need a significant amount of groceries because the supermarket is only 3 minutes away. This means you only get what you need at the moment, you don’t buy things in advance. This is much more convenient, as I don’t need to plan anything in advance. I decide what I’d like to have for dinner tonight and then go out to get whatever ingredients I need. I’d hate for shopping trips to be this whole weekly expedition where you have to plan and haul all the stuff for an entire week just because you can’t quickly hop over to the store.

It also means you get fresh products. I’d hate to have to eat week old bread.

Chances are if you have an apartment in the city you buy far less food. Less room to store it and more options to eat out