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Comment by jetrink | Hacker News Reader

> Buying groceries for a family for whole week

That's the thing: when your grocery store is a short walk away, you don't buy groceries for the whole week. You just duck into the store on the walk home or you walk over at lunch. You buy things for that evening or a few days at most. Having to plan for a whole week of meals seems normal to us, but it's an adaptation to the fact that we live too far from grocery stores. With our large fridges, cabinets, pantries, and chest freezers, we basically turn part of our homes into well-stocked convenience stores so that we can go out as little as possible.

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A lie. I have literally my entire adult life lived walking distance from the grocery store and I've even walked to the grocery store and I have always shopped weekly. Being able to cook daily is a luxury of time and energy. I don't bulk buy, but I definitely only have a weekly pit stop. It's not as cumbersome as the person you're replying to thinks. A week of groceries is only like 3 shopping bags, but still it doesn't make financial sense to go grocery shopping literally every day. Buying tiny amounts of groceries just doesn't make much sense with how things are sold, especially if you're a single person.

Having a grocery store a short distance away is not contingent on eliminating cars. However, modern grocery stores are massive. An increase in clusters that service smaller areas would necessitate smaller stock. We have convenience stores of course, but what do people buy there? Junk. If they're all specialized, then it means more stops and consequently more time invested in daily grocery runs.

I don't think this is a common setup for any developed country with 2 income households. Likely the daily-run for groceries occurs in areas where women are homemakers. Is that part of the pitch? There's no way we're going back to that, or daily grocery runs.

Every major city I’ve ever been to in the US, Germany, Portugal, Spain, etc. all had smaller grocery stores that sold real produce. It’s very common, not a big deal. And it doesn’t require women to be homemakers, good lord.

I'm aware of some of those in major cities. Produce does not constitute the whole of one's daily diet (overwhelmingly). Hence, specialization.

Also, having these small produce-oriented grocers does not imply that people are doing daily runs. In my city I only see them in posh, upscale neighborhoods. In some larger metropolises like NY I've seen them also in less gentrified places, but they tend also to be specialty stores.

Groceries in cities sell meat and bread, etc often too, they’re no different than normal grocery stores, just not as big as a supercenter.. I feel like you’re overcomplicating this due to lack of familiarity. And sure, maybe you don’t go to the grocery store literally every day. Maybe you get two or three days worth, what’s comfortable to hold or to push in a cart. Sometimes you order takeout. This is normal stuff in places that aren’t rural areas where the only option is to drive 5-10 miles to a grocery store.

> they’re no different than normal grocery stores

They're a fraction of the size. If average weekly needs and wants were met by those, that's where people in those neighborhoods would shop all the time. Everything else would be redundant. But instead they seem to fill a missing middle.

> maybe you don’t go to the grocery store literally every day.

Great, vindication.

not really a fraction, just smaller. examples: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jZ6D3bUWCiZWeP45A https://maps.app.goo.gl/1Xj6Z6gpGxM4Hzp66 https://maps.app.goo.gl/XzFG59eXBKofTdu37

Chicago, NYC, Lisbon, Berlin, Barcelona, etc. They all have their versions of these stores. You don't need to go anywhere else unless you want to for some reason.

Those aren't suburbs. Which makes it moot, since high-density areas already have these.

Lots of us do that in the suburbs too. I live close enough to walk, just over 1/2 mile, to a Safeway but usually choose to drive out of convenience. I’m at that store nearly everyday, sometimes multiple times if I forgot something or need something else.

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