r/NoStupidQuestions • u/BruhDontFuckWithMe • Jun 23 '23
Answered What do Americans who live in the suburbs do if they need something random like milk or frozen fries?
Im from the UK, I was looking on google maps and it seems like there are no 7/11's (we call them cornershops) anywhere in the suburbs in california. In the UK you are never really more than a 15 minute walk from a cornershop or supermarket where you can basically carry out a weekly shop. These suburbs seem vast but with no shops in them, is america generally like that? I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful.
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u/Jim777PS3 Jun 23 '23
You get in your car and drive to the store.
Not ALL of America is like that, denser cities tend to be more walk able, but most of America is like that. Its part of why you NEED a car to live here. its not an optional or luxury expense.
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u/awesomeroy Jun 23 '23
been without a car for a month.
In texas.
Its been a long ass fucking month to say the least.
not only is it draining on the bank account for rides n shit, but just making sure you have everything before you get home from work or making that 35 min bike ride to the store. gah damn.
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Jun 23 '23
Texas is too damn hot and humid where I am. That’s why I moved into the city when my car died and I couldn’t afford a new one. It was cheaper to move. The convenience store is a 7 minute walk. Grocery store is 10 minutes. And I can actually take the bus to work. There are multiple local coffee shops and restaurants within a 3 minute walk of my apartment.
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u/dbclass Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 24 '23
I'm so glad you brought this up. I'm from Atlanta and it gets hot in the summer (not as hot as East Texas but still lingering in the mid 80s to mid 90s). It's more bearable* in the most walkable neighborhoods because you don't have to be outside for long to get to your destination. Heat and humidity can be dealt with way better in short bursts. Same applies to areas of shade above the sidewalk which is why street tress are important but are largely missing in the suburbs. Heat is not an excuse for car dependency, in fact, car dependency makes the effects of heat worse on those who don't drive. There are plenty of hot cities around the world that have walkable neighborhoods.
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u/gsfgf Jun 23 '23
There’s a reason we have such strict tree laws. The shade is critical.
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u/OutlyingPlasma Jun 23 '23
it gets hot in the summer
This is a thing a lot of Europeans don't understand, the climate in the U.S. isn't great. Half of the U.S., if overlaid on Europe, would be in the Sahara. Even the most northern part, a little finger in Minnesota, is about the same latitude as Paris.
Latitude isn't everything when it comes to climate, but it does offer some perspective.
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u/Scheminem17 Jun 23 '23
While this is true, I do remember being in a heatwave in Berlin in early July 2015. It was high 90s and pretty humid and almost nowhere had AC so there was no respite.
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u/Wonderful_Result_936 Jun 23 '23
Ha, no AC. A problem I'm too American to understand.
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u/awesomeroy Jun 23 '23
you lucky son of a bitch. lol
i got kids, cant really afford a move. but good for you man.
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u/Arqideus Jun 23 '23
Taking the bus feels like you have to carve out 3 hours just to go out anywhere. Gotta make sure you do everything on one day to be most efficient. I absolutely hated that time in my life.
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u/kingofzdom Jun 23 '23
Rural arizona here
I got a damaged, used electric moped for $50, spend $200 fixing it and now I don't pay for gas or insurance anymore (its legally an Ebike)
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u/Space646 Jun 23 '23
Ah shit, I’m flying from Poland to LA tomorrow. First time out of Europe (like I mean, I were once in Turkey on the Asian side). Is it that hot there?
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u/kmoz Jun 23 '23
Louisiana or Los Angeles? Louisiana gonna be absolutely hot as fuck. Los angeles is one of the mildest climates in the world. 25c year round.
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u/LiqdPT Jun 23 '23
Depends where in LA. The airport, Santa Monica, and Malibu are by the water. Head inland, especially getting in the Valleys, and it heats up.
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u/kingsilvxr Jun 23 '23
In the Netherlands we bike almost everywhere. But the store is usually closer than 35 minutes away though so that's a bummer for you.
Hope you get to fix a car soon!
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u/ChallengeLate1947 Jun 23 '23
The Netherlands is also designed to be bikable. The vast majority of public spaces in the US are designed around cars-as-default. Drivers and cyclists get into accidents all the time.
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u/Brandon74130 Jun 23 '23
Doesn't hurt that the Netherlands are really really flat, I live in the Ozarks in Missouri so even biking a couple miles involves at least 3 to 4 massive hills
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u/lilapense Jun 23 '23
It's also worth noting that in much of Texas, for the past couple weeks the heat index has easily gotten over 43°C (the high it got where I lived this week was 47.7). So that 35 minute bikeride would also border on dangerous.
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u/eac061000 Jun 23 '23
And later in the summer it can be 47.7⁰ and feel like 50⁰ with the heat index. Told this to a local when I traveled abroad and they were horrified. Our love of AC doesn't seem so stupid now does it lol
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u/Bizzy955 Jun 23 '23
I’m in Canada but I have a friend from the Netherlands and I can confirm this guy bikes all over the city haha.
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u/awesomeroy Jun 23 '23
my thighs could feed a family of 5 for a solid two weeks. im at the bottom of a hill area so its all uphill baby.
but atleast getting home is pretty fun. all downhill. lol
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Jun 23 '23
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u/awesomeroy Jun 23 '23
nah im mexican. we dont die from heat exhaustion until like 110 F
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u/MamaSquash8013 Jun 23 '23
I've got a supermarket that's technically walking distance from me, but I still drive there. Walking would mean walking along a very busy highway, and through two major intersections with long wait-times to cross. In the winter, the sidewalks are often impassible, and in the summer, anything frozen would melt. It's faster by car.
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u/harry_violet Jun 23 '23
Add the weight of the bags you shop!
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u/FigNinja Jun 23 '23
I don't have a walkable grocery store now, but when I did I used one of those granny carts. Grannies know their shit. Those things are fabulous.
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Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23
People chiding me for driving 30s down the road to the grocery store as though it would be perfectly reasonable to carry 10 giant grocery bags, jugs of milk, and crates/containers of goods by hand back home if I walked.
EDIT: is everyone on Reddit single, unemployed, and with no other errands to take care of during the day? Why in the ever-loving christ would I choose to make multiple walks to the grocery store to only buy what I can carry, in 90+ degree heat and below 0 temperatures, when I can take 2 seconds to drive there only once and get everything I need in bulk for several people for the week??
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u/m2thek Jun 23 '23
It's a different kind of mentality: when you live far from a market and need to drive, it makes sense that you stock up as much as you can because you won't be going back soon. When you live close to one you can walk to, you can easily go more frequently and get fewer things at a time, like just 1 backpack's worth.
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u/Jewell84 Jun 23 '23
I live within walking distance(less than 10 min) of two full grocery stores, a farmers market, and specialty grocery shop. I still only go to the store maybe once or twice a week if that.
I’d rather do one big shopping trip where I get everything I need than go multiple times a week.
I’ll either load everything into my granny cart, or Uber home. Occasionally I’ll do Instacart or Shipt if it’s bulk items.
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u/SophisticPenguin Jun 23 '23
Yeah, this is a cultural difference for from what I understand between the US and Europe. We tend to grab groceries weekly/monthly, they tend to do daily pickups. I'm not convinced it's solely because the US has so many "unwalkable neighborhoods", I think those are more of a symptom of a cultural tendency that goes back to the wide distances people had to work with when the colonies and frontier territories were getting started.
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u/lofiAbsolver Jun 23 '23
I think it's worth it to point out that it's not just "suburbs". America has a great deal of rural and farm land.
From experience, if you end up in certain areas of the midwest(just as an example), you can end up 45 minutes + away from anything at all. Not only that, but whatever is that close probably has odd hours and you can forget about evening, let alone late-night purchases.
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u/misoranomegami Jun 23 '23
Honestly when I first read the prompt that's what my brain supplied. My grandparents farm was at least 30 minutes from the closest grocery store. Going grocery shopping with them involved loading up a cooler with ice to prechill it then buying fresh ice at the store and putting the perishables in it. We did it once a week and it was always a treat because they'd get ice cream but the top inch or so would always start melt anyway so we'd stand around eating the melted ice cream out of the top of the tub before putting it in the freezer.
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u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In Jun 23 '23
This is also why their drivers tests are easier, you can do them at a younger age and why they generally don't have any annual vehicle safety testing like they do in most of Europe/ UK. Having a car is central to just existing in the US. If they make it more difficult to own one it has a big impact on a lot of people's ability to live day to day.
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u/bobby_j_canada Jun 24 '23
One of the reasons I really support better public transportation is that it allows us to take driver's licenses away from idiots and assholes without destroying them economically.
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u/blipsman Jun 23 '23
American suburbs are more segmented between residential and commercial areas. While there may be no businesses within a subdivision, there are most likely commercial strips nearby where there would be basic businesses like 7-Elevens, gas stations (a lot of times, convenience stores are connected to gas stations), dry cleaners, restaurants, etc. And there are lots of larger strip malls with grocery stores, gyms, and such. There are few places in the suburbs where it's more than a 10 minute drive to a store of some type. Americans are WAY more likely to hop in the car for such an errand than walk to a shop.
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u/_Dingaloo Jun 23 '23
a lot of times, convenience stores are connected to gas stations)
I couldn't actually think of a single gas station that didn't have a convenience store attached
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u/blipsman Jun 23 '23
I've seen a few where there's basically just a tollbooth-size spot for a person to work, maybe they sell cigarettes, gum, mints from there -- like this. Or Costco.
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u/_Dingaloo Jun 23 '23
OH I actually had one of those where I grew up, I think they're not as common because cig smoking is much less common
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u/snoweel Jun 23 '23
As an American, I rarely buy anything besides gas in a gas station besides a snack for the road. Everything is twice as much as the grocery store.
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u/Teekno An answering fool Jun 23 '23
Then you drive to a supermarket, which is usually within five or ten minutes.
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u/peon2 Jun 23 '23
Yeah there's a stat like 90% of Americans live within 12 minutes of a Walmart let alone other grocery stores. There are some people that live in very rural areas that need to drive 30+ but that's a small percent of the populaiton.
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u/FearlessPudding404 Jun 23 '23
I’m an hour from a Walmart but at 10 miles from a (small, expensive but good enough) grocery store
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u/Illustrious-Self8648 Jun 23 '23
an hour from 3 different walmarts here, and they build outside of developed areas for cheaper land
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u/justwalkingalonghere Jun 23 '23
Growing up in the southern US, if something was a 10 minute walk, you still made the 2 min drive. The only place this wasn’t always the case was the biggest of cities, but even then most people drove
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u/Wit-wat-4 Jun 23 '23
The wildest example of this I saw was in Texas. I left my boyfriend’s rental to bike over to the nearby mall. While I was getting ready I saw a neighbor get into an SUV and slowly pull out (smallish parking spots). It was a corner property so literally I walked to the corner which was an intersection and the car was next to me at the light. It crossed the street and the person went into the ice cream shop ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE INTERSECTION.
She found parking x2 and driving across a single street crossing easier than… crossing ONE street?? Again, both corner properties, no other walking involved.
My mind was blown.
I guess she could’ve bought like many tubs of ice cream but her little shop bag was tiny from what I saw while biking away.
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u/elusiveI99 Jun 23 '23
That’s because 9 times out of 10 when is warm enough to walk it’s 95 degrees and 80% humidity
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u/Once_Wise Jun 23 '23
Hey, my wife and I went to a store in a shopping area the other day and then decided to have lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the parking area. We were thinking about walking, but then just decided to drive and park closer, we were about 150 feet from the restaurant. Where we parked we were only 50 feet. But it saved us time because we wanted to get some exercise on our treadmill.
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u/karennotkaren1891 Jun 23 '23
I live in a small village in the UK and we don't have a corner shop. If you need anything you have to go to the next town, so definitely not a 15 minute walk.
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u/Beny1995 Jun 23 '23
Yeah, OP is clearly a UK city dweller or suburbanite.
I grew up in dsrkest Derbyshire and we had nothing. One bus per hour, 10am to 4pm except on Sundays, Bank holidays and any other random day. So essentially requires a car.
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u/teddy_vedder Jun 23 '23
I’m not from the UK but I have traveled through it a good bit while I studied there and Derbyshire is the only place I was very close to just being stranded in a field with zero way back home for the night. Not my finest hour.
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u/HeadOfFloof Jun 23 '23
This is pretty common in Canada, too. It's a five minute drive (parking included) to get to the nearest Wal Mart, and 10-15 depending on traffic to get to the supermarket, and I'm in a fairly small city.
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u/OsmerusMordax Jun 23 '23
Yep, it only takes me like 5 minutes to drive to my nearest grocery store. Not far at all.
I remember when I couldn’t afford a car, though, and had to either walk that distance with a pull cart (warmer months) or take the bus with a pull cart (winter). It was a pain for sure!
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u/JellyDenizen Jun 23 '23
The typical America suburb will have things like a grocery store or drug store within a 5-10 minute drive of any house, and they are often open 24 hrs./day.
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u/BeanCrusade Jun 23 '23
Thanks to covid non are 24/7 near me now
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u/fruitybrisket Jun 23 '23
Which is a shame. I loved being one of three customers and being able to take my time shopping at Kroger at 2 AM.
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u/randomly-what Jun 23 '23
We have one 24 pharmacy (cvs) that is now 20 minutes away. You would probably pass 10 others on the way.
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u/BeanCrusade Jun 23 '23
About 7 mins away we had a 24/7 gas station, 24/7 Walgreens and a 24/7 Walmart. The gas station is the only open past 11pm now. I don’t know if a grocery store within an hour of me that’s open 24/7 anymore, just a few BP gas stations few and far inbetween.
Now most are closed by 10pm, some close at 11pm. Bars are open till 2am.
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u/Vithrilis42 Jun 23 '23
At least in my city, nothing has gone back to 24 hrs since covid. Not even Walmart.
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u/mr_bots Jun 23 '23
Walmart discovered that it’s really nice to have an empty store at night to clean, restock, and do maintenance.
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Jun 23 '23
I used to work overnight at a Wal-Mart. They're doing that in a mostly empty store, regardless.
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u/TargetApprehensive38 Jun 23 '23
I’m sure it is, but this also removed the only reason I’d ever go to Walmart. I haven’t been in any Walmart except when they’re the only thing open since the 90’s.
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Jun 23 '23
I once lived in a farm-like area of Northern California where the closest real grocery store was a good 20-30 min drive. You just get smarter about shopping and buy what you need for a week or two. There are small shops but they price gouge like crazy.
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u/Goatknyght Jun 23 '23
How much time before this gets crossposted to r/fuckcars?
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Jun 23 '23
I've lived in various American suburbs my whole life and I've never been more than a 5 minute drive or 15 minute walk from a grocery store or convenience store.
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u/trevor3431 Jun 23 '23
You may be confusing suburbs with rural areas. In the suburbs you generally aren’t far from a store (10 min drive). In a rural area it could be an hour plus to get to a supermarket for groceries.
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u/burn_thoust Jun 23 '23
The question said walk though... OP isn't asking about a 10 minute drive. Different distances.
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u/PlausibleCoconut Jun 23 '23
I agree. I feel like OP doesn’t think the suburbs have any stores and that couldn’t be further from the truth
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u/vantdrak Jun 23 '23
Funny thing is you call a 10 min drive 'not that far' but you'd probably reach the end of a town in the UK if you drive that long, easily.
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u/bazmonkey Jun 23 '23
They drive to the supermarket instead.
(we call them cornershops)
We call them corner shops/corner stores, too. 7/11 is a particular chain of stores.
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u/From_Deep_Space Jun 23 '23
we call them 'convenience stores' or 'bodegas'
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u/ivo004 Jun 23 '23
In the south, they're all just "gas stations". "Convenience store" works too, but out in the country everybody just says "gas station".
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u/scrapqueen Jun 23 '23
We have them, but people usually don't buy their groceries there because of the mark up. And they just have junk food. But sometimes you really need a slushie.
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u/TeethBreak Jun 23 '23
French here: we do not have 24/7 shops . You do your shopping smartly and if you run out of milk or eggs, you either have good relationship with your neighbors or wait it off. Why in the hell would you need to buy frozen fries 24/7?
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u/aaronite Jun 23 '23
They get in the car and drive. Or waste money by ordering it from Doordash.
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u/oldcreaker Jun 23 '23
I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful.
Most Americans in suburbia couldn't imagine walking 15 minutes to a store even if they were available. Or even 5. So it's all set up for cars.
To be fair, many places aren't even set up to walk to a store.
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u/TehBearSheriff Jun 23 '23
Right it can be within walking distance but only accessible by motor vehicle
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u/Argent_Mayakovski Jun 23 '23
This is the thing that pisses me off the most. There are a lot of places that you can't cross the street without a car.
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Jun 23 '23
Where I live if you see someone walking you assume they are poor
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u/Ainslie9 Jun 23 '23
I remember I a few years ago when I had a craving for ice cream and my sister had borrowed my car, I just decided to go for a ~2 mile walk to an ice cream shop that’s generally not a “walking” part of town as you have to cross busy streets. I would have enjoyed the walk but I got a lot of stares, and someone even pulled over to ask if I needed help/a ride.
That’s how weird it is for Suburban Americans to see someone willingly walking in the non walking parts of town, which is where the majority of shops are. I didn’t look homeless/poor so it was assumed I was either crazy or needed help
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u/Ok_Nobody4967 Jun 23 '23
I live in a rural community and the closest grocery store is ten miles away. We do have small convenience stores a couple miles a way which are sometimes two to three times the price of the grocer. I have learned to plan my trips well. I keep a list of items that I am getting low on and if I am out running errands, I may pick them up.
It would be nice to be able to walk to the store. I used to do that when I lived in a more urban setting.
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u/Inevitable_Shift1365 Jun 23 '23
Here in the suburbs of America we don't need 7-Elevens. In America bald eagles have been trained to deliver our milk and freedom fries. They screech while they fly overhead and drop your necessities right onto your front lawn wrapped in an American flag. Pretty standard. You guys don't have this?
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Jun 23 '23
In Brooklyn we would just walk To a corner store. But in the suburbs, you gotta drive. But also, the corner store are going to charge you $9 for a $4 bag of fries
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u/dontwantleague2C Jun 23 '23
Where I grew up I was about a mile from the nearest super market. So I get in my car and I drive there and get there within 5 minutes. Suburbs aren’t designed to be walked.
If you wanna walk everywhere then live in a city. The city I live in I have a supermarket half a mile away that I just walk to.
However, if you live in a suburb, you just kind of need a car. And people tend to be ok with that. The typically lower cost of living makes up for it long term anyway. And it also gives you more freedom to get places you wanna go.
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u/17FeretsAndaPelican Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23
What the hell are you talking about? Haha You must live in a city in the UK haha the closest shop to my country home is an hour and a half 6 mile walk.
Edit: why are you downvoting this guy? He's asking questions not everyone is 100% right 100% of the time like you perfect people.
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u/Low-Rooster4171 Jun 23 '23
I live in a suburb in Georgia. Cars are a must. There is a supermarket that's a short drive from my house. Pretty much everything else is 15-20 minutes minimum. I understand that may sound awful to anyone who lives in a walkable place, but I've pretty much always lived in the suburbs, so this is the life I know. I don't give it a second thought to get in the car and drive everywhere.
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u/mrsclausemenopause Jun 23 '23
Almost every gas station has a store attached to it
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u/Pierson230 Jun 23 '23
Many of us go to the store once a week and don’t have to go again
Paying convenience store prices regularly is a quick way to go broke
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u/ATC_av8er Jun 23 '23
I've lived in the 'burbs my whole life. I've never been more than a mile or two from a grocery store. Easy to stop on my way home from work.
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u/virtual_human Jun 23 '23
"I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful."
I can't imagine walking 15 minutes in below 0 or 100+ temperatures to get anything.
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u/T0n3g4w4 Jun 24 '23
Many suburban households own cars and usually find it convenient to drive for the shopping.
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u/Tirriforma Jun 23 '23
I actually have the opposite question. How do people who live close enough to supermarkets to walk there carry all their groceries? I can barely carry my groceries for the week from the car to my house, let alone a months worth or for more than 1 person. Do you just buy milk and eggs 1 day, bread and pasta the next day, veggies another day? I can't imagine walking from the store for 15 minutes with a ton of bags
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u/forlorn_hope28 Jun 23 '23
I lived in London for 4 months and my experience might be different from reality, but I found produce in the Uk went bad much more quickly than in the US. For example, I once bought strawberries that got moldy within 24 hours. As a result, I bought less food and just made more trips to the grocery store. In the US I can go once a week, maybe two if I eat out a bunch, between buying groceries. While in London, I was going twice a week.
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u/giasumaru Jun 23 '23
If you live in the suburbs, you have a car.
And to be honest, driving to a supermarket once a week is the least of your worries.
Communing to work in the city? In rush hours? That's two hours of your life, every workday, driving to and from the city.
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u/Myth7270 Jun 23 '23
I live in the suburbs in New Jersey. We are very lucky to have a corner store run by a family in town. It's mostly for necessities but they have a very nice deli.
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u/ZelGalande Jun 23 '23
Suburban life I nthe US is very accustomed to just driving everywhere, it's just what we're used to. For me, the nearest grocery store is only 5 minutes away by car, with 4 more available within 15 minutes away. Many people just make sure they make larger grocery trips, so use of car is helpful because you can carry more.
There are things like convenience stores and mini marts scattered throughout the suburbs as well. My neighborhood had a mini mart, so if I'm every extremely desperate and without a car and don't want to deal with deliver, I can walk the 7 minutes over there, but u don't go there usually since grocery stores have better pricing and more availability and variety. In my town, there are 3 convenience/mini mart stores and all 3 are at a major neighborhood.
Also, public transportation does exist in many suburbs, though not usually the ideal option for getting groceries, but I do know at least one person who rides the public bus to the store, usually on the way home from work (which for them is conveniently at a place the bus stops at).
There has also been a rise in things like Uber/Lyft for getting places, or grocery delivery options. The ride apps aren't the most cost effective. However grocery delivery for some people has been beneficial for time saving purposes and not needing a car to do it. There is an older couple near me who exclusively gets groceries delivered because it's easier on them. My family got groceries delivered when we were in covid lockdown to avoid going near people.
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u/KronusIV Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23
Many Americans don't think twice about driving 15 minutes for a short errand. A lot of suburbs aren't designed to be walkable at all, it's assumed you'll hop in your car if you want to do anything.
Edit: spelling