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The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the
by hammock 4y ago
The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back.
Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery with no or limited off-street parking, and which receives its deliveries on the street in the early morning (no loading dock)
- ahoy 4y agoWell yeah, a "15-minute-city" kinda precludes the 10-acres-of-asphalt style development. I live in brooklyn, exactly the kind of city described. I'm within a 10 minute walk of at least 4 grocery stores, none of which have a parking lot at all.
- jandrewrogers 4y agoMany of the supermarkets in the urban areas of Seattle have no surface-level parking lots and some have no parking lots at all. They are mixed in with all the other store fronts.
- gtk40 4y agoI haven't spent a lot of time in Seattle so I can't comment there, but in my experience urban supermarkets are more likely to have a parking lot underneath the building or in general have less parking than a suburban supermarket. Example: https://goo.gl/maps/AeXZhm6ZfYntEE1p7 https://goo.gl/maps/AeXZhm6ZfYntEE1p7
- teucris 4y agoSeattle has a mix of these. In my neighborhood, the closest supermarket has a gigantic parking lot. I never think of walking there.
- Arelius 4y agoBut in contrast, the QFC on Broadway in Capital Hill for instance, has no above-ground parking lot. And is very walkable.
- muricula 4y agoThere's actually a parking lot above the QFC. There's also a solid ramen place and a drugstore up there.
- yayadarsh 4y agoI assume they are talking about the other QFC on Broadway (north of the Pike St one)
- fleekonpoint 4y agoThat one closed about a year back unfortunately.
- teucris 4y agoYes, capital hill is great. Check out grocery stores in Columbia City, Rainier Beach, and lots of neighborhoods in north Seattle.
- crowbahr 4y agoThat's what the supermarket in Lower Queen Anne looked like when I lived in Seattle.
- Rediscover 4y agoOut of curiosity, which one: QFC or Safeway?
- skt5 4y agoboth
- throw0101c 4y ago> The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. In a walkable neighbourhood, they'd just be a store front: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/197+Roncesvalles+Ave,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/197+Roncesvalles+Ave,+Toro... * https://www.google.com/maps/place/1435+King+St+West+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/1435+King+St+West+Toronto,... Or at the very least, much smaller: * https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6395232,-79.4172267,3a,75y,300.12h,94.93t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDhhVlH7dkR2RbfrUs457ZQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6395232,-79.4172267,3a,75y,3...
- rhino369 4y agoChicago neighborhoods on the near north side (which are some of the most walkable in America) have large supermarkets. They just have parking garages (either above or below them). They are slightly smaller than suburban ones, but not that much. Whole foods has plenty of them in all big cities. It's just a cultural reason why some cities lack them--probably because people don't cook at home as much in NYC, for example.
- bobthepanda 4y agoIn NYC it’s more a combination of lack of suitable lot sizes, and rent per sq ft. Supermarket buildings easily require 10,000 sq ft. There is also very heavy competition from more traditional markets, like those found in Chinatown with very cheap meat and produce prices.
- Brystephor 4y agoI live in downtown Seattle. In the more dense urban areas such as Queen Anne and South lake Union the grocery stores aren't like that. They have underground parking and street parking. If you get into more residential areas such as Pinehurst, Lake City, etc then you find more grocery stores that are similar to what you're describing.
- dfxm12 4y agoThe more dense the area, the more likely you're in a 15 minute city and the more likely there is a supermarket with no big parking lot. Compare the Whole Foods in the UES Manhattan vs the Whole Foods in Manhasset.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoAll of the grocery stores in the core of Seattle are exactly like that--urban centers with underground parking. Some even have apartments on top of them so you could live above the store if you desired.
- BryantD 4y agoCan confirm. This is also true in the denser areas outside the core. Ballard has a couple of large supermarkets with a lot of parking (although one of them is likely to get purchased and turned into a light rail station), but it also has several supermarkets that fit the urban core description. Fremont has an urban core supermarket right in the middle of the neighborhood; the U District has one coming.
- dmoy 4y agoI guess that depends on your definition of "core of Seattle". There's definitely grocery stores in ID, Wallingford, UW area, etc that all don't have underground parking and have outdoor lots taking up a lot of space.
- superfrank 4y agoI wouldn't say all. In the downtown core, most are (some in the ID are not), but once you start getting out of the more urban neighborhoods, it's hit or miss. West Seattle, North Seattle, and South Seattle all have plenty of supermarkets that are large one story buildings in the middle of a big parking lot.
- karmelapple 4y agoAnd in some places it’s illegal to build something like that. Zoning laws can be so restrictive, even in urban areas like those you mention. I think supermarkets becoming 4-over-1 buildings with living places above them would be fantastic. Walk down to the first floor to get your groceries, walk them up to your home.
- bluGill 4y agoDid you mean 5 over 1? 5 and one refers to sections of the building code not how many floors you have.
- allturtles 4y agoThis comment seems to be based on a misconception of what "supermarket" means. These days supermarket pretty much == grocery store. The grocery stores that existed before supermarkets (with limited selection, probably no meat department, maybe no self-service, maybe no prices listed on the items) don't exist anymore. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket. edit: this is in a U.S. context, I don't know how these terms are used in other English-speaking countries
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jimmaswell 4y agoDoes this fit your definition of the kind of grocery store that doesn't exist anymore? They have a few misc. items, but it's almost all just food, and a fairly small building. https://maps.app.goo.gl/KSnn5Fq37DQwiSpAA https://maps.app.goo.gl/KSnn5Fq37DQwiSpAA
- ghaff 4y agoYou do see smaller, usually not great, markets located especially in more rural areas. Sometimes they're affiliated with one of the bigger chains like Hannaford's.
- vel0city 4y agoThat's definitely closer to my idea of a "grocery" versus a "supermarket". It seems like I see them in some small older towns but anything that had a lot of recent construction usually sees larger supermarkets with big parking lots even for small towns.
- jimmaswell 4y agoThere's a Dollar General nearby but the parking lot isn't that big.
- allturtles 4y ago
- throwayyy479087 4y agoI live on top of a large supermarket, and did at my old building. It's absolutely awesome. No parking lot at all, but why would you need one? It's always packed.
- JieJie 4y agoThat's actually what kills walkability in my neighborhood, the ridiculous acreage of parking lots in North Seattle near 130th and Aurora Ave. Most of my neighbors are in senior housing and are pretty much afraid to cross the street, so the three grocery stores a block away might as well be on the moon.
- mtalantikite 4y agoIt's different in most parts of NYC, they're more like what you're describing as wanting (and I agree with you). The original supermarket in my neighborhood, about a block away, has no parking and a loading zone in front of it to receive shipments. I've always liked these regular NYC supermarkets. A Whole Foods moved in down the street a few years back and they do have a parking garage under the building, but I'd guess most customers aren't using that. I wouldn't be mad if it went away tomorrow though. We're of course a very different city than pretty much all other cities in the US, as we're not at all car dependent in most parts of the city.
- costcofries 4y agoI'm not American but I really agree with this comment. Each time I do go to America, everything just feels very.. American. Lots of concrete, big vast spaces of industrial, roads that seem far too wide and just overall very, overwhelming and big. Just my personal observations of course.
- ejb999 4y agoTrue in a lot of areas in the USA, but someday when you are in the US explore some of the less populated areas in small to mid-sized towns, far away from the major population areas. Sometimes I think people that grew up in, and live in a big city forget that not everyone in the USA lives like that. There are still a tremendous amount of beautiful places in all 50 states.
- costcofries 4y agoI don't doubt this and I've seen some of it firsthand! I only meant to compare the larger cities of Canada and America and the observed differences. Each of our lands has their own distinct beauties.
- vanilla_nut 4y agoI grew up in a rural area of upstate NY with a very low population... but still has the same "overbuilt, overwide, overfast" road problems. I've lived in a few US cities since then; of them, NYC was the only place that didn't feel built for cars more than humans. But NYC still feels like humans have been pushed "out of the way" in favor of car traffic in many places, especially outside of lower Manhattan. I currently live in a small New England town that does an OK job at "human" infrastructure because it was originally built for walking and there just aren't enough cars to ruin things for pedestrians. But I would love to hear suggestions of other not-cities in the USA that are walkable, bikeable, and not car-dominated. I've been considering buying a home to combat out-of-control rising rent prices and walkability is a requirement for me, so I love adding new areas to my list.
- Spivak 4y agoAmerica really lost the cultural victory here. In pretty much anywhere else in the world a place's unique atmosphere, customs, architecture and way of organizing would be generally respected even if to an outsider it's unfamiliar or odd. You see this idea everywhere, it's not "corn is one America's staple crops and the use of corn syrup which is sweeter and more abundant than cane sugar gave Americans a preference for the very sweet" but "Americans with their unrefined pallets, unhealthy diets, and obesity crisis put heaps of sugar in everything."
- com2kid 4y ago> The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back. I live in a walkable Seattle neighborhood. Accordingly, the "supermarkets" are not quite the mega-large stores they are in other parts of the city, and they have smaller parking lots accordingly. This is a generalization, but as a rule, Seattle is laid out on a grid system, and every 5 blocks there is a larger 2 lane road where the speed is 25 MPH instead of 20MPH. Grocery stores are generally on the corner of those larger blocks. > Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery In my experience, prices are higher and the selection is very limited, so living near one of those doesn't present much benefit to me. Which is my next point, despite living walking distance to 3 grocery stores, I still typically drive a mile away to a larger store because prices there are 2/3rds to 1/2 what they are at any of the stores close to me.
- sandworm101 4y ago>> ...despite living walking distance to 3 grocery stores, I still typically drive a mile away to a larger store because... A mobile consumer base, people with cars that can travel to potentially hundreds of retail options, is a backbone of American competition. Like cars or not, they empower consumers to defeat local monopolies. The next stage, pickup trucks, then empowers retailers to sell large products (appliances) to an enormous consumer base from a central location without dealing with transport companies and/or teamsters for local delivery.
- Zagill 4y agoNothing about cars specifically enables this. Building cities so that you have to drive to travel any significant distance, however, guarantees that you need a car to take advantage of competitive pricing. But that's self-apparent... Building dense cities that can be accessed by bike and on foot would have the same effect. Spreading out your city so that what could be a 15 minute walk is now a 15 minute drive isn't an improvement.
- 4y ago
- inpdx 4y agoI have sympathy for the argument, but a lot of people can't afford to spend the extra money a smaller store charges.
- jdlyga 4y agoI live in an apartment complex that has a full-sized grocery store in it in the US. It's actually not what you think. The grocery store and shops are on the bottom, with 5 floors of apartments on top. There's no big giant parking lot, but a parking garage that's built into the apartments. Shoppers park in the 1st floor of the garage (free for shoppers). It's a very walkable area, since it's about 500 feet from a riverside pedestrian path connected to tennis courts and a nice park. It's a little bit of a unique situation since it's across the river from a major city, and most people (rich or poor) take the bus or ferry in instead of driving.
- vikingerik 4y agoIs this in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan? (you don't have to dox yourself if you don't want to, but everything you say matches what I saw living there, particularly the ferry)
- burnished 4y agoWhere I grew up we had the kind of huge parking lot stores you are talking about - where I live in Seattle now those dont exist. Some places have parking lots but none of them are big enough for a rousing game of hide and go seek.
- devoutsalsa 4y agoSan Francisco & Washington DC are USA cities in which I’ve lived that I enjoyed walking to & from the supermarket. I’d be fine walking 20 minutes each way, carrying a couple bag on groceries home with me. Those cities are very walkable, and by walkable I mean interesting.
- upon_drumhead 4y agoThe IGA in downtown Seattle is a great example of how it should be. It's just a standard store front on the block that goes down a level to a normal sized grocery store. No huge parking, and in fact, I walked past it for years before realizing it was a grocery store.
- slillibri 4y agoThat store closed last year, I believe. That entire block of 3rd is a deserted wasteland now.
- epistasis 4y agoThere's nothing I hate more than a massive massive super market, offering the same variety of products as a decent sized store but with wiles filled with many feet and entire shelves with exactly the same product. So much pointless walking, hunting, and searching for so little benefit. My favorite grocery store is about 1/4 to 1/5 of the typical supermarket like a Safeway, because it has all the same products without all the fluff. And an actual real butcher counter with plenty of on staff butchers, instead of row upon row of prepackaged cuts.
- sandworm101 4y agoMaybe is Seattle, where weather means you can have door/windows more often than not. But opinions change north/southern in places that alternate between heating and air conditioning. Noise is less of an issue and walking takes much more commitment. It was -15c last night outside my place. I would love to be 15min from a large supermarket. At the moment I am a 25m drive from the nearest place selling bananas. Even if I biked, my food would likely freeze before getting home. And in summer (30c) I couldn't buy meat/frozen food. Motorized transport to buy food isn't going away, at least not outside inner cities.
- frosted-flakes 4y agoYou don't live in a city though.
- sandworm101 4y ago15k people. It's spread out but is called a "city" on the sign. All the grocery stores are centralized and beside each other on the main drag.
- dag11 4y agoThe two supermarkets I use most in downtown all have parking underground and are optimized for pedestrians. QFC: https://goo.gl/maps/yt2X53i8adHddNA7A https://goo.gl/maps/yt2X53i8adHddNA7A PCC: https://goo.gl/maps/aXT2U24qXvA1VH6t9 https://goo.gl/maps/aXT2U24qXvA1VH6t9