7 ms·

Indeed. With a car, in a place designed for cars, I can go from ideation to grocery store or department and back inside of half an hour. In a place "designed

Indeed. With a car, in a place designed for cars, I can go from ideation to grocery store or department and back inside of half an hour. In a place "designed for people" where neither homes nor stores have parking, such an errand consumes an entire afternoon. (Walk to bus stop, wait for bus, take bus to train, wait for train, ride train, walk, etc. Though I suppose it's easier if you can afford to live a short walk from the train itself). The dramatically slower pace of life, turning any outing into a huge ordeal, is definitely not a good thing. Give me Manhattan-quality public transit or let me use my damn car. "Park 'n ride" is a seriously underrated idea. A small, urban core where the jobs, businesses, entertainment, etc. is, blanketed in dense and frequent transportation, with trains out to the affordable residential neighborhoods, and plentiful, cheap parking at the neighborhood train stations. Chicago does this nicely.

ginko 10y ago
As someone living in a place "designed for people", my trip to the grocery stores means putting on my shoes, walking down the stairs and across the street. The next department store is about 200m down the street.
- superuser2 10y ago
  Is this Manhattan? Because in Chicago I think that describes about 10 blocks (a few hundred staggeringly wealthy people in the most lavish of luxury condo towers). The rest of us have some tiny, price-gouging convenience stores nearby but have to go ~20 blocks for a real supermarket, 4-5 miles to downtown for a Target or Macy's. Taking the train is less of a hassle than parking in the Loop, but it's still a hassle.
  - ginko 10y ago
    It's Trondheim.
  - jbattle 10y ago
    I lived in three different apartments in uptown and edgewater and was able to walk to a supermarket within a half-mile. Two of the locations were also close to other general shopping choices. All three were close enough to the El to get us whereever else we wanted to go. Downtown Evanston is similar or maybe even better. I get your point that this model is not common in the US - but I believe that's the entire point of this article - how can cities be designed to be more livable?
  - ido 10y ago
    In Vienna "maximum 5-10 minutes walk from the closest supermarket" would cover virtually the entire population.
  - cozzyd 10y ago
    ?? This wasn't true in Hyde Park and it certainly isn't true in South Loop.
collyw 10y ago
Come and try Barcelona. I have a number of supermarkets within 5 minutes walk of my house. Driving is a bit of a pain in the arse here (mainly because I don't want to pay for parking for my crappy car, so I park it 15 minutes cycle away).
ismail 10y ago
The assumption here is without cars cities would be laid out exactly the same. What if there were by laws that every high rise above x floors has y retail space on the ground floor. In this case most of your daily needs would be serviced by a trip down. Once a week/month you may go to a larger store.
- superuser2 10y ago
  In San Francisco and Chicago, I experienced no shortage of tiny, expensive corner stores, restaurants, boutiques, etc. That's the kind of stuff that seems to go into the ground floors of residential towers. The hassle was accessing (the local equivalents of) Target, Kroger, Best Buy, etc.
  - ismail 10y ago
    What are the problems with the small stores that you describe? - expensive? - few products? Something else? If pricing is an issue the question becomes, How do you assist small retailers compete with massive chains? A problem I have thought about quite a bit as my dad once owned a small corner shop He had to close it as the chains make it impossible to compete on price with bulk buying discounts. I believe what happens is due to the layout of our cities we end up with large chains, malls and big box retailers. It's a virtuous cycle...
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > If pricing is an issue the question becomes, > How do you assist small retailers compete with massive chains? Is the problem that they can't compete, or that they don't have to? When driving isn't the main method of getting around, but instead walking augmented by potentially high-latency public transit is the main method, the cost to the consumer of small distance differences between notionally "competing" institutions becomes quite high, which means that they have less need to actually compete with one another: they have captive hyper-local markets with effective moats.
- mason240 10y ago

ginko 10y ago

As someone living in a place "designed for people", my trip to the grocery stores means putting on my shoes, walking down the stairs and across the street. The next department store is about 200m down the street.

superuser2 10y ago
Is this Manhattan? Because in Chicago I think that describes about 10 blocks (a few hundred staggeringly wealthy people in the most lavish of luxury condo towers). The rest of us have some tiny, price-gouging convenience stores nearby but have to go ~20 blocks for a real supermarket, 4-5 miles to downtown for a Target or Macy's. Taking the train is less of a hassle than parking in the Loop, but it's still a hassle.
- ginko 10y ago
  It's Trondheim.
- jbattle 10y ago
  I lived in three different apartments in uptown and edgewater and was able to walk to a supermarket within a half-mile. Two of the locations were also close to other general shopping choices. All three were close enough to the El to get us whereever else we wanted to go. Downtown Evanston is similar or maybe even better. I get your point that this model is not common in the US - but I believe that's the entire point of this article - how can cities be designed to be more livable?
- ido 10y ago
  In Vienna "maximum 5-10 minutes walk from the closest supermarket" would cover virtually the entire population.
- cozzyd 10y ago
  ?? This wasn't true in Hyde Park and it certainly isn't true in South Loop.

collyw 10y ago

Come and try Barcelona. I have a number of supermarkets within 5 minutes walk of my house. Driving is a bit of a pain in the arse here (mainly because I don't want to pay for parking for my crappy car, so I park it 15 minutes cycle away).

ismail 10y ago

The assumption here is without cars cities would be laid out exactly the same. What if there were by laws that every high rise above x floors has y retail space on the ground floor. In this case most of your daily needs would be serviced by a trip down. Once a week/month you may go to a larger store.

superuser2 10y ago
In San Francisco and Chicago, I experienced no shortage of tiny, expensive corner stores, restaurants, boutiques, etc. That's the kind of stuff that seems to go into the ground floors of residential towers. The hassle was accessing (the local equivalents of) Target, Kroger, Best Buy, etc.
- ismail 10y ago
  What are the problems with the small stores that you describe? - expensive? - few products? Something else? If pricing is an issue the question becomes, How do you assist small retailers compete with massive chains? A problem I have thought about quite a bit as my dad once owned a small corner shop He had to close it as the chains make it impossible to compete on price with bulk buying discounts. I believe what happens is due to the layout of our cities we end up with large chains, malls and big box retailers. It's a virtuous cycle...
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > If pricing is an issue the question becomes, > How do you assist small retailers compete with massive chains? Is the problem that they can't compete, or that they don't have to? When driving isn't the main method of getting around, but instead walking augmented by potentially high-latency public transit is the main method, the cost to the consumer of small distance differences between notionally "competing" institutions becomes quite high, which means that they have less need to actually compete with one another: they have captive hyper-local markets with effective moats.
mason240 10y ago