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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Supermarkets are not a result of cars. They are the result of people not wanting to spend 3 hours in 10 different shops to get what they need. Your logic is all wrong.

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First, I don't know why this is going grey at my time of writing because it's true and if that's unsexy I guess me and a lot of Americans are just not meant for a life in France because bouncing around small specialty stores sounds like hell. Second, I honestly don't get the hate for super markets. You might not find high-end wagyu beef at Wal-Mart but you'll find basically any spice you want, a few different varieties of fish, lamb, beef, basically the same staple meats as any other country, and lots of regional 'niche' things from around the world. If the variety was bad it'd defeat the whole point of going to a supermarket. Yeah I guess you might miss out on the "opportunity" to buy a twelve dollar loaf of bread but if you can't make at least ten different good meals out of what's available in a supermarket your issue is frankly skill and not ingredients.

Except in France the bread is pretty cheap even from an independent bakery because there’s one every 50 metres so the competition keeps the prices down.

Bread has become way more expensive in France even in small bakeries. Easy to remember the price before the euro introduction and now and you will see the huge inflation in bread prices

Before the euro it was somewhere between 1 and 2 francs, IIRC. Now it's between 1 and 2 euros. Checks out.

a good 7x increase.

Inflation is huge. Doesn't change the fact that compared to anything similar you can get in the US, a €1 baguette is vastly cheaper

Come to Montreal. We have a pedestrian culture, with supermarkets but also tons of small shops.

People like both. But when you have enough cars and lose the density you lose the small shops.

Never said you cant have both at the same time. But supermarkets clearly win on convenience.

Just like most us cities too. I love Montreal but it's not more pedestrian than say, NYC. Shutting down 2-3 streets in the summer is basically the biggest difference.

NYC is the exception in American cities. What other examples in America are comparable to Montreal/NYC? In terms of just having entire swaths of the city be walkable with lots of small shops.

I mean Montreal is the exception in Quebec too, but I get your point. I think north america in general is just not very walkable. Even cities like Quebec City (very walkable old city) only have a very small area that I would consider walkable. Another example here in Quebec would be Laval, which is very close and well connected to Montreal yet still almost always requires a car to get by outside of rush hour.

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