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Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

After spending a few weeks back in Europe (after 8 years in the US), it quickly came back to me how much easier it is to live a healthy daily pattern of life there than it is here. In particular: Shopping for food in the US is almost always a separate trip in a car or a bus or on foot. Whereas in Spain it's common to go meet friends, pick up some bread and veg from the store, meet more friends and pick up things from a butcher on the way home, then you start cooking and go out again later. Ane you can do this every day. In Amerca... you have to plan a trip with a car to buy more than you want to spend and stock it away, and at the end you want to go out and you don't even want to cook

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In the UK, the supermarkets, the Internet, and modern 'town planning' have largely caused the demise of the UK high street.

In the 70s towns were smaller, fewer people had cars, and there were hardly any supermarkets, so people walked into the town centres and did their grocery shopping there.

Then in 80s we started getting the first out-of-town supermarkets with free parking. You have always had to pay for parking in UK town centres since I can remember.

And the UK government relaxed Sunday trading laws. Many family owned stores stayed closed on a Sunday - having 1 day a week off.

Then supermarkets started offering more 'range', to the point now where many UK supermarkets are like mini-shopping malls. Clothes, music, opticians, locksmiths, pharmacy, and so on. And they started closing their town centre supermarkets and moving everything to the new out-of-town ones.

At the same time UK planning laws now favour developers building 1-2000 homes with a couple of small shops, no High St. or Main St., and as many houses as possible built on all the remaining space for profit. These developments are unsurprisingly nowhere near town centres, so people need to drive. And they don't want to go into a town centre where there's no supermarket, and you have to pay to park. I don't really understand what we're trying to build over here.

Towns that have prevented mainstream chains (Sainsbury, Tesco, Starbuck, MacDonalds) from setting up, have faired far better. Butchers, bakers and greengrocers, small convenience stores (mom+pop groceries) all still exist in those towns, unlike those towns with nearby supermarkets.

So in part, we're not as bad as the US, but we love our cars, and just blindly go to supermarkets now.

On average this saved people a lot of time and money.

One thing to remember is that most women were stay-at-home mums and were grocery shopping every day. But once you have a car and a fridge (1970s) you can go to the supermarket once a week only, which saves a massive amount of time, especially when you now also have a job.

High streets need to be attractive. Old, dodgy shops are dead, clothing shops have a hard time. That's the way it is and best to go with the flow than trying to put things back "the way they were".

New housing developments are awful, though. The price gap between nice neighbourhoods with "old houses" and those will just keep growing.

It's not so much 'the way they were', rather, I'd prefer to live in a small town with a butchers, bakers, and grocers, so that I'm spending my money in the local economy, and that I'm getting higher quality produce, and back to the original post, shops that are within reasonable walking distance. The number of towns or villages in my area that have this are vanishingly small.

In fact, my medium sized town (20-30,000 people) has no butchers or bakers left. It also does not have a town centre supermarket. It does however have McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, Costa, kebab shops, and so on. You can probably guess correctly, that my local town centre is like ghost town.

It is extremely depressing that the UK is becoming like this, whilst at the same time planning rules and regulations (or lack thereof) are encouraging the centralization of shopping habits into large supermarkets in the chase for profits by the house builders.

Well, McDonalds, Costa, etc. provide jobs to locals, especially young people. That's the local economy as much as other shops.

Independent butchers and grocers have mostly disappeared because they are expensive and less convenient. Places were you can still find some are usually either 'posh' or where the local demographics has special meat/dietary requirements, shall we say...

The advantage of an independent butcher is that you can order in advance or ask them to source/prepare special things (in my experience that's the only way to find fresh lamb kidneys, for instance). But that is less and less the case, and people are less and less interested. And, again, it is much more expensive.

> Well, McDonalds, Costa, etc. provide jobs to locals, especially young people. That's the local economy as much as other shops.

McDonald's and the rest provide very low wage jobs to locals while leveraging their economies of scale to undercut local competitors on price, while all the profits go into the balance sheet of a company that's headquartered far away, sometimes in a different country.

They are precisely not the local economy as much as those other shops for that reason.

> McDonald's and the rest provide very low wage jobs to locals

I know this is about the UK, but just as an FYI, in the US, small service sector employers provide an even lower wage because they rarely offer tax advantaged benefits that big businesses can offer, such as subsidized health insurance premiums paid with pre tax income, and paying for retirement savings/public transit/daycare/life insurance/etc with pre tax income.

It is amazing the advantages big businesses have that can afford the time and money expenses of the paperwork for providing those tax advantaged benefits.

Interesting. In my country (Poland), pretty much most of the benefits and perks are taxed as income, so there is no tax advantage in paying employees with them instead of cash.

Yes, the US is extremely corrupt in how it tilts working for a big employer more advantageous over a small employer.

We weren't always like that, the laws started changing in this direction maybe 10 years ago. Before that, everyone with a decent job was getting a company car, an now company cars are only given for people who actually travel a lot on the job, and everyone else prefers the extra cash instead of the company car.

BTW the laws weren't changed to level the playing field for small companies, it was just our equivalent of IRS fixing loopholes to bring in more tax money.

> McDonald's and the rest provide very low wage jobs to locals

They don't provide lower wages than independent shops for similar positions, it's all above board, and they are happy to hire students. I am not convince that they price competitors out, either.

The industry is hard and opening a restaurant or coffeeshop is very hard. I think the thing is that the like of McDonald's and Costa are expert and know how it works, while the person who "always dreamed of opening their own coffeeshop" might not be realistic about what's required.

Also, these days people work far away for customers that are possibly all over the world. They use their money to buy products that come from all over the world. So what does 'local economy' mean? Providing local jobs is good whoever does it.

I think McDonald's are often franchises so they are local busineses even if of course they have to pay to the "mothership".

Those big chains drain money from the local economy though. Small independent stores only send the cost of supplies/restocking out of the local economy. Chains mean there is continuously less money circulating in the town and requires people who import money from other local economies. Having chains in your town means that within a generation or two, the town will be effectively dead and hardly ever grow.

> Those big chains drain money from the local economy though

Exactly, all revenue goes back to HQ, and then off to somewhere else.

In some cases being part of a large company means the smaller branches that don't barely break even stay open and it's "good" for those towns in boom years.

But as soon as there's an economic downturn, they are the first stores to be closed.

> Having chains in your town means that within a generation or two, the town will be effectively dead and hardly ever grow.

This is not true in the US. There are lots of places with chains (everywhere?) that are growing.

This is true for suburbs because the money comes from outside of the local economy since those people mostly commute to work. For actual small towns, nowhere near a large city, it's quite a different story, almost reminiscent of a 3rd world country.

I must be fortunate then, as my closest local butcher that have to drive to, is generally cheaper than my regular supermarket.

Supermarkets aren't exactly strangers to price fixing and ripping off customers. Once you've driven off the local competition, you can set your prices to whatever you want. My area is known for high petrol prices, controlled by guess who? Local supermarkets. Drive a few miles and it's 5p per litre cheaper.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/dec/08/supermarket...

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/results/why-its-so-hard-to-prove...

McDonald's jobs are dead end and low pay, suitable only for kids. Butcher, baker, etc. are skilled life-long careers.

France has really got it right, in my opinion. I don't know how much they subsidize local business, or what their incentives are for training, or if it's just their cultural attachment to good food, but I've traveled across France and never seen a village of over 300 people that didn't have a butcher, a green grocery / dairy shop and at least two kinds of bakeries. Of course there's always a huge Carrefour within driving distance, but even that is stunningly high quality compared with even supermarkets in other countries in Europe (let alone the wretched quality of counter service at supermarkets in the US).

Well, actually France is one of the most successful markets for McDonald's.

France does not subsidise local business. In fact France is not business-friendly at all.

The French like quality food (and they also like McDonald's) and thus there is a viable market for it. That's all. It's the same in Spain or Italy, for instance.

Looking forward or Amazon deliveries to my lounge, and generative AI TV shows that go forever. Also AI generated events such has the superbowl. Everyday!

The UK puts plenty of supermarkets in/near town centres too, though, so if you live near a town centre you don’t typically have to drive out of town (or drive at all) to buy food.

It’s nothing like the US where the distances are huge and a car is all but mandatory in many/most areas.

Your rant is from a decade ago. Everything is delivered nowadays. Sure in the 70s the average housewife wouldn’t work and would walk to to the local shops during the week. Nowadays everyone works, so shops need to be open more hours.

The restrictions on Sunday trading are the worst things - the one time I do actually go to a shop is when I’m doing something like DIY and find that I need something at 4pm on a Sunday and a redox is closed, or when I’ve been away for the weekend and can’t stop at the normal local Morrisons as it had to close early.

If you want a town centre to be appealing then make it worth going to.

I live in one of the cities the Netherlands which for the large part gets around this problem because of a luxury(population density). We have both walkable shops and boutique stores, and if you’re the kind that prefers to drive to a big store that has it all, then they are in the outer rings of the city. Still bikable with a cargo bike to give you some context. But they have big free parking.

The thing that irks me is - I love shopping at these boutique specialty shops. But man they want to be open 9- 5 on weekdays and mostly are closed when I can actually go there to spend my money. This is just wildly illogical to me. Sure, the people who work there needs their evenings and weekends too.. but, who cares if they are at the shop on a Tuesday at 1 PM?

Looking at the next generation, I don’t have much optimism that such special shops would stay on for long. Some perhaps will cater to the niches and those that can afford very expensive shops. But, the largest parts of stuff is going to be delivered to home from industrial warehouses outside the cities.

Groceries (veggies, milk, meat and stuff) are probably going to be the o lot ones one has to walk into a neighbourhood shop for.

Need DIY stuff? Electronics? Clothing? Toys? Paper towel? Detergent? Anything non-perishable? You’re probably going to need to get online.

It's not a rant, but thanks for the sarcasm. It's an observation, given that I've lived through those decades.

You would have loved the 70s. Nothing open on a Sunday, and shops closed half day on Wednesdays.

And a dutiful wife cooking that freshly bought food, with my pipe and slippers ready for when I get in, kids ready for evening inspection and off to bed, yeah sounds delightful.

Oh the horror.

This is also why I think and hope electric vehicle is not the global solution to the too much ICE cars problem, nor is archieving self driving on those cars. A popular solution doesn't make it the best one, it is just the best solution under certain circumstances. Yes I'm talking about tesla.

"The future of the car is self-driving, but the future of transportation is not the car"

Absolutely, design of cities dictates behaviour. The secondary effects of this are interesting too. For example, european kitchens can be smaller because they don’t need to store as much.

Indeed! I was in SF for a few months. Finding affordable food was insanely hard. Fast food was both really cheap and everywhere. Fresh produce and basics like bread were expensive or hard to find, a long bus / tube drive away. Of course it's much easier to fall into that trap of shitty and cheap food.

Where I live the balance is much easier. Vegetables, fruit, meat, ... it's all relatively cheap and easy to get, there's supermarkets and bakeries everywhere. Fast food is relatively expensive, so you get something to think about: (expensive+unhealthy but easy) || (cheap+healthy but you need to cook)

Curious to know where in SF you lived. Generally there’s bodegas all over the place and you can find fresh produce there. Not to mention, the city has good bakeries everywhere. Fast food (the well known chains) are quite hard to find in most neighborhoods.

Right in the center of the tenderloin area.

Is this just an urban vs outer suburb thing, tho? My experience of the US is largely limited to San Francisco and Seattle, but there did seem to be supermarkets within walking distance most places in the city.

> Whereas ... common to go meet friends, ... meet more friends

I live in the NL, but I can hardly meet any friends. Maybe a difference in culture in Spain?

I suppose you're talking about one certain life style where this kind of pattern fits well. I used to follow this exact description for many years when I was younger and did in fact live right in the center of a small city. It worked great for me. I remember one weekend where I suddenly craved a boiled egg and so just had to walk 5 minutes from my door to a farmer's market to buy a single egg which I carried home holding it in my hand. (The guy selling the eggs gave me a surprised look, but hey, I was single back then, one egg was enough...)

But later in life, with three little children, I just simply couldn't imagine a trip to the grocery store every day. Having moved out to the suburbs, public transport or walking wasn't an option any more, and I was already doing enough driving around what with the kids going to school and all kinds of afternoon activities.

I would have actually loved the more car-centric design of North American cities where at least the driving is made easy. No squeezing through small alleys, tiny parking lots (if any) and 3+ stops to get all the things you need for the week.

The reason the North American car centric design works (too) is that it optimizes for convenience rather than environmental concerns (and it's not like European cities optimized for the latter either, they were simply built in pre-car times). Even if the driving distances are further, that doesn't necessarily mean that the overall shopping trip is much longer in practice. And even in cases where it is, I just find it much less stressful to drive in North America. Of course, your mileage may vary.

When I lived in the city center many years ago, there was one larger grocery store about 5 minutes away from me on foot and a couple of smaller stores specialized in one thing or another in the same area. And while that was very convenient for me, it also meant that there was constant traffic in front of my house from people driving to these stores. There wasn't much zoning rules, apparently, the stores where all just mixed in among the residental houses.

I'm in London and there are larger stores with parking lots. That's how my parents shopped when they had multiple kids at home. The difference is that they aren't the only option. The car centric design pushes every journey, every person and every need into a car. Convenient if you meet the requirements (age, wealth, ability) and massively inconvenient if you don't.

This describes to a T my experience. The insane hassle of packing up a temperamental 1 or 2 year old, who will probably spend half the time screeching while everyone gives you nasty glares, and their bag of goodies to go anywhere really kills the desire to do anything but a megabulk run in a bulky McAmerican car every couple weeks.

The thing is that 1 or 2 year olds don't stay that age forever and shouldn't dictate the design of a city.

Which, luckily, no-one is suggesting here.

(By the way: there's always new 1 or 2 year olds coming in, too...)

American zoning laws have made anything else illegal to build, so yeah, you are kinda suggesting we should design our country for a specific way of life.

The missing ingredient (compared to previous times) is numerous close friends/family who can help take care of the babies and toddlers.

Yes, that's one of the problems when all "communities" exist only online today.

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