Hacker News Reader

Comment by kcplate | Hacker News Reader

People are going to have to come to a point where they realize that their urban fantasies that everyone wants to live stacked on top of other people just so they will be within walking distance of grocery stores is never going to happen.

They also have to realize that not everyone wants corporate box box stores in their backyards, which in the US is where grocery and household goods are bought.

They also should realize that sometimes desirable places to live can grow faster than infrastructure planning anticipated and nice things like bicycle paths and central shopping areas often aren’t often available that allow safe travel from where the homes are…to where the grocery stores are located by anything other than a care.

View on HN

> They also have to realize that not everyone wants corporate box box stores in their backyards

Corporate box stores are literally a direct result of suburbanization, if you don’t like them then that’s a argument against the suburbs, not for them.

I wasn’t arguing against them, I was suggesting that folks generally don’t want a 250k sq foot building operating 24 hours a day on a 7 acre patch right outside the back door.

That tends to be why developers avoid putting housing developments right beside them, it’s not really unreasonable IMO.

I get that, its just confusing why you’d connect that with urbanization. Urban environments tend not to have corporate megastores.

Your comment read to me like this “not everyone likes urban environments, people don’t want [insert thing indicative of the suburbs] right on top of them”

Urban places aren’t just more compact versions of the suburbs.

I was not clear then. I was basically taking exception to the comment above that seemed to grip about the lack of walkability of suburban and rural communities and how they were not optimal communities. Some folks just don’t want urban (I don’t). Some folks want suburban (I do) and some folks want rural (not for me).

Suburban tends to be not generally walkable because grocery and retail tend to be on the outskirts and not city center. My comment about big box stores was meant to basically convey that they are not walkable or bicycle friendly because folks in suburban environments don’t want those giant stores that near their homes, but they don’t mind and actually prefer them to be 5-10 by car.

Some neighborhood developers drop quasi downtown main streets now with a few restaurants, boutique shops,etc…but these are not designed to sustain the community around it, but more as a neighborhood perk. Generally are nice enough that nearby homes are not devalued by close proximity the way a large retail or grocery store might be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com