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To give you an idea: I have a 3 grocers within walking distance, and I will usually just go buy what I need for whatever I am going to make the same day. One ba

To give you an idea: I have a 3 grocers within walking distance, and I will usually just go buy what I need for whatever I am going to make the same day. One bag is usually fine. I have never purchased that much fertilizer, but I have purchased a 50lb bag of sand at the hardware store on the corner. It is so close, I would be surprised if my walk home was not shorter than your wife's walk back to her car. Living in the dense city requires many sacrifices, but one of the best upsides is being able to walk places.

LgWoodenBadger 8y ago
Well, how many people can physically live as close to those things as you do without having a 1-hardware-store-per-100-feet or 3-grocers-per-square-mile density?
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  I don't really know, but I would say that, in areas where people largely walk and bike, businesses tend to have a smaller area that they draw regular customers from, and it is easy for a few businesses of the same type to coexist relatively close to one another. There are duplicates of many types of businesses in my neighbourhood. Walking is the most distance-sensitive major form of transportation. People who mainly walk tend to shop at the closest possible place. Nothing in walking distance will match the selection of a big store like Tractor Supply or Home Depot. I use Zip Car when necessary, but it is pretty rare, especially now that everything can be ordered online.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  I'm on the Upper West Side. 42,000 per square kilometre. More people live in these 500 hectares than the hundreds of square kilometres of Darwin where I grew up. At the end of my street there is a cleaner, a hardware store, grocery store and restaurant. Within view of the grocery store is another grocery store. A street over from the hardware store is another hardware store. Two streets down? Another restaurant. You get the idea. And then if I need something really specialised, I hop on a train and go to one of the mini-districts where I can find a whole street of something. Or I ring them, or visit their website, and get it delivered. A month ago I was in a three-story cloth store with a friend. On a street full of cloth stores. I had no idea such things existed. But they do. There's a curtain district. A street where I find several places selling mattresses. Famously, a street of jewelers. Again: you get the idea. Living a middle-class life in a dense city is a kind of convenient normally reserved for the rich.

LgWoodenBadger 8y ago

Well, how many people can physically live as close to those things as you do without having a 1-hardware-store-per-100-feet or 3-grocers-per-square-mile density?

oftenwrong 8y ago
I don't really know, but I would say that, in areas where people largely walk and bike, businesses tend to have a smaller area that they draw regular customers from, and it is easy for a few businesses of the same type to coexist relatively close to one another. There are duplicates of many types of businesses in my neighbourhood. Walking is the most distance-sensitive major form of transportation. People who mainly walk tend to shop at the closest possible place. Nothing in walking distance will match the selection of a big store like Tractor Supply or Home Depot. I use Zip Car when necessary, but it is pretty rare, especially now that everything can be ordered online.
jacques_chester 8y ago
I'm on the Upper West Side. 42,000 per square kilometre. More people live in these 500 hectares than the hundreds of square kilometres of Darwin where I grew up. At the end of my street there is a cleaner, a hardware store, grocery store and restaurant. Within view of the grocery store is another grocery store. A street over from the hardware store is another hardware store. Two streets down? Another restaurant. You get the idea. And then if I need something really specialised, I hop on a train and go to one of the mini-districts where I can find a whole street of something. Or I ring them, or visit their website, and get it delivered. A month ago I was in a three-story cloth store with a friend. On a street full of cloth stores. I had no idea such things existed. But they do. There's a curtain district. A street where I find several places selling mattresses. Famously, a street of jewelers. Again: you get the idea. Living a middle-class life in a dense city is a kind of convenient normally reserved for the rich.