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It’s not that hard to understand. People want to take their cars shopping with them. Walking home with your shopping, catching public transport with your shoppi

It’s not that hard to understand. People want to take their cars shopping with them. Walking home with your shopping, catching public transport with your shopping, dragging your shopping around from one place to another, are all either inconvenient or impossible depending on what you’re going shopping for. Unless I can easily fit everything I intend to buy in my bag, I’d want to take car with me.

jdnenej 7y ago
You can still park outside the city and walk the short distance or if it's too heavy to carry then most stores do free delivery for large orders.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Personally, I just avoid shopping in the city center unless I have a particularly good reason to. But the parent said they couldn’t understand why anybody would want to drive into the city. The answer is perfectly obvious. Convenience, even though it comes at the expense of taking more time. Everybody could do things the way you suggest too, but it would still be less convenient, so not everybody will do that every time. I’m sure many of those same people also buy things online, in circumstance where that’s the more convenient option.
maeln 7y ago
For this reason, furniture shop, hardware shop, or any shop that tend to sell bulky things is usually not in the city center in a place more accessible by car and with a parking. At least, that's what happening in my city. For other shopping, you can usually park in a relay parking (a parking close to public transportation) and you will be 5 to 15 minutes from the shops. And unless you brought a real shitons of things (which already means that going shop to shop is going to be annoying anyway) it's not going to be an issue. I lived 8 years in my city without a car. I was very rarely a problem. The only thing is for people with disability. I can understand that for them, a car can still be practical.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  I’ve lived in cites without owning a car for long stretches of my life, I’m in no way a private transport evangelist. But what you’re describing demonstrably a compromise in convenience, and not one that all people are will to make, or one that people will be willing to make every time. This is perfectly easy to understand.
  - maeln 7y ago
    I honestly don't see it that way. Car in city center usually lead to horrible horrible traffic, especially in our old European town where the centers are usually full of narrow streets. It then becomes annoying for everybody: As a driver, you will be stuck in traffic and pollution most of the time. As a pedestrian, you will have to always mind your surrounding to be safe and you will have to smell the horrible car exhaust. Since our center is mostly car free, it honestly feel more convenient. Sure you have to sacrifice the convenience of being close to your car, but you can be in and out of the center in a matter of minutes, never be stuck in traffic, and being there is much more enjoyable. Also, my city converted a lot of road into pedestrian way and they added a lot of place to sit down, take a break, ... Before that, you where always stuck in a narrow sidewalk, bumping into other people with cars going full speed less than 1,50 meters next to you... Not really a pleasant experience. Your only hope to catch a break was in the shops themselves, meaning you where trying you damnest to go from shop A to shop B as quickly as possible. It made people overall more aggressive and your experience very bad. And finally, they added more green space which help prevent flood which started to appear in the last years because we had too many area covered in asphalt.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      But that’s still a compromise in convenience. You’re trading not dealing with one problem for not dealing with another. You’re making a qualitative judgement about which problem you care about the most. It’s not reasonable to assume that everybody cares about the same conveniences that you do.
      - 7y ago
whenanother 7y ago
this is a us/australia way of thinking. most of the world just buys what they need for that day on the way home. they don’t need huge refrigerators. and there are more opportunity for social interaction and more exercising.
- jerrysievert 7y ago
  this is one thing i greatly miss from having worked next to a small grocery store. there were always fresh flowers in the house, and even when i wasn't up to cooking dinner or going out, they had fresh-made items that could quickly heat up. unfortunately, after leaving that job i could never get back into that habit - maybe because my only other option (two blocks from home) was a large chain store, and the food quality was never quite the same.

jdnenej 7y ago

You can still park outside the city and walk the short distance or if it's too heavy to carry then most stores do free delivery for large orders.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
Personally, I just avoid shopping in the city center unless I have a particularly good reason to. But the parent said they couldn’t understand why anybody would want to drive into the city. The answer is perfectly obvious. Convenience, even though it comes at the expense of taking more time. Everybody could do things the way you suggest too, but it would still be less convenient, so not everybody will do that every time. I’m sure many of those same people also buy things online, in circumstance where that’s the more convenient option.

maeln 7y ago

For this reason, furniture shop, hardware shop, or any shop that tend to sell bulky things is usually not in the city center in a place more accessible by car and with a parking. At least, that's what happening in my city. For other shopping, you can usually park in a relay parking (a parking close to public transportation) and you will be 5 to 15 minutes from the shops. And unless you brought a real shitons of things (which already means that going shop to shop is going to be annoying anyway) it's not going to be an issue. I lived 8 years in my city without a car. I was very rarely a problem. The only thing is for people with disability. I can understand that for them, a car can still be practical.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
I’ve lived in cites without owning a car for long stretches of my life, I’m in no way a private transport evangelist. But what you’re describing demonstrably a compromise in convenience, and not one that all people are will to make, or one that people will be willing to make every time. This is perfectly easy to understand.
- maeln 7y ago
  I honestly don't see it that way. Car in city center usually lead to horrible horrible traffic, especially in our old European town where the centers are usually full of narrow streets. It then becomes annoying for everybody: As a driver, you will be stuck in traffic and pollution most of the time. As a pedestrian, you will have to always mind your surrounding to be safe and you will have to smell the horrible car exhaust. Since our center is mostly car free, it honestly feel more convenient. Sure you have to sacrifice the convenience of being close to your car, but you can be in and out of the center in a matter of minutes, never be stuck in traffic, and being there is much more enjoyable. Also, my city converted a lot of road into pedestrian way and they added a lot of place to sit down, take a break, ... Before that, you where always stuck in a narrow sidewalk, bumping into other people with cars going full speed less than 1,50 meters next to you... Not really a pleasant experience. Your only hope to catch a break was in the shops themselves, meaning you where trying you damnest to go from shop A to shop B as quickly as possible. It made people overall more aggressive and your experience very bad. And finally, they added more green space which help prevent flood which started to appear in the last years because we had too many area covered in asphalt.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    But that’s still a compromise in convenience. You’re trading not dealing with one problem for not dealing with another. You’re making a qualitative judgement about which problem you care about the most. It’s not reasonable to assume that everybody cares about the same conveniences that you do.
    - 7y ago

whenanother 7y ago

this is a us/australia way of thinking. most of the world just buys what they need for that day on the way home. they don’t need huge refrigerators. and there are more opportunity for social interaction and more exercising.

jerrysievert 7y ago
this is one thing i greatly miss from having worked next to a small grocery store. there were always fresh flowers in the house, and even when i wasn't up to cooking dinner or going out, they had fresh-made items that could quickly heat up. unfortunately, after leaving that job i could never get back into that habit - maybe because my only other option (two blocks from home) was a large chain store, and the food quality was never quite the same.