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"Hard to walk to the grocery store where you live" isn't the same thing as "hard to live where you can walk to the grocery store". If you count entire cities a

• wbsss4412 5y ago
  The number of cities where that is the case are a distinct minority. And no it isn’t the same thing, but that was what parent comment was communicating. If people assume you are poor because you aren’t driving then you live in a place where you can’t walk to get groceries, in a practical sense, because clearly for any normal person the trade offs are prohibitive.
  • rory 5y ago
    I've lived in three different US cities and in each, walking to get groceries was normal and not challenging. I made my reply assuming the parent comment meant literally what they said. If you are reading another meaning into it, that's fine and I don't disagree. But they also don't contradict my comment, so why frame it like an argument?
    • wbsss4412 5y ago
      They didn’t technically contradict your comment but I also didn’t feel like you were giving it a charitable reading either. I find it odd that you’re asking why I’m framing it as an argument as though an argument wasn’t already framed.
      • rory 5y ago
        Okay, fair-- I guess I just think it's important to be clear that although most Americans choose to live in sprawling places, if you're newly arriving at the US, it's not strictly necessary. Many, many immigrants choose walkable places, since getting a drivers license, car, etc. are expensive and inconvenient startup costs. I don't at all disagree that most of the US is not walkable. Both these things can be true at the same time, but I felt the literal statement of the parent comment was incorrect, so I corrected it.
        • wbsss4412 5y ago
          Yeah that’s something I can definitely agree with. And I really should apologize, I think some of my own frustration was taken out on you there. I personally would really rather not own a car, but outside of the northeast, it’s very impractical to do so.