I wonder how much things like Google Shopping Express, Amazon Fresh and (possibly in future) drone deliveries would help to reduce the need for personally owned cars?
Not having a large family allows you to do that. Good luck carrying home enough groceries for 6 people.
Consequently I'm buying hundreds of dollars of stuff each time I go, and most times I have a kid pulling on my arm. How am I supposed to carry all this stuff?
Luckily I have instacart, Google express, and Amazon to fulfill all non-groand the deliveries are sent to my house.
It's not really the death of cars, that's just a good headline, it's a shift in priority in new design, and a transition in that direction over time. But obviously there will be huge variance in transport models in different cities and countries, and from the centre to the suburbs.
I live within a 5-8 minute walk of half a dozen different grocery stores. It's great. I've lived in places where you need to drive, and I never want to go back to that.
Though of course, you can always get a cart or something.
When I lived in Denver many years ago, King Sooper's sent around a flat truck a couple of times a day, picking up grocery carts that had been left on lawns and curbs by pedestrian shoppers. I doubt that something so great could still be happening, but I'd be happy to hear that it is.
Perhaps a stepping stone to a general self-driving car would be a car that could just drive itself back to the store, to have the trunk filled with more bulky purchases.
If you are only concerned with what groceries you will require in the next 24 hours then carrying the required groceries for a large family isn't such a big deal.
And if grocery shopping every day sounds like an ordeal remember that everyone else is doing it too so generally everyone is only buying a handful of items. No trolleys piled high with stuff.
>do you have kids while living in a walkable city?
I do although my collection is limited to a single 1 year old at this time.
>Other days its simply that we haven't gone for a bit, and so it takes 3-4 arms to heft it back. Serious pain if you're out with the tykes and don't have your spouse/SO along.
Shopping as a lone adult with children when you have extended your usual shopping schedule is always going to be painful no matter what.
Going shopping with your car having not done it for a while is very definitely no picnic. Managing a child who isn't happy about how long this whole thing takes while you select, pack and eventually unpack your own body weight worth of groceries is not fun. Even if you aren't buying that much, as a lone adult juggling a baby and your groceries and getting all of them into the car while standing in a busy car park is an inherently unfun and often dangerous activity.
Frankly the only non-unpleasant way to do a larger than usual shop alone but with children is to get it home delivered.
I think our baselines have shifted: We've become so accustomed to living in places that are designed around the assumption that everyone owns at least one car that it's becoming hard to even imagine things that were just everyday life less than a century ago.
Conversely, I suspect the density of Snap Fitness locations was much lower. But you have to take the bad with the good.
Incidentally, in my (currently) single-income family I'm expected to pick up groceries on the way home from work. When we were two income, we'd share that responsibility. Historical chore assignments were a product of more than one factor, and I don't think anyone would suggest that all of them were desirable.
(But you can use pretty big panniers on a standard bike too)
Works for 2 people, should work for 6. It's even cheaper than driving there because you don't pay for fuel.
Or buy smaller amounts each day when walking back home. A little more expansive than in mall, but fresh.
Now it's coming back, now that the ordering end can be automated.