Groceries were a total PITA, maybe if you order a lot of delivery it’s fine, but we cook every meal and needed at least a granny cart at least once a week. And small grocers nearby had terrible vegetables; there is a lot of variance in supermarket quality. Maybe in NYC they have it figured out, but the trade off is everything cost crazy money.
I commuted by bus for this time to work, an hour each way and my hours were beholden to an infrequent bus schedule — it knee capped my career because I had to leave at hard cutoff and never could meet up for lunch or happy hour, and lost 10-15 hrs a week on a bus.
Even subway is so-so, unless they run every 5 minutes and you live and work on top of statio can add up fast, and transferring lines adds a ton of time.
Huge regret trying to live car free in an American city (not NYC).
Just for contrast. I'm living a car free life in my mid-late 20s at the moment in Denmark, and I rarely ever order delivery.
Supermarkets are close enough (I actually live above one, but were that not there, there are still three others within a five minute walk), that I rarely do a "weekly" shop and just buy my groceries when needed, most of which are of decent to high quality.
It's not really much of an inconvenience to keep a relatively well stocked kitchen without a car here. I'm really struggling to understand how a "granny cart" worth of groceries once a week is a chore? That's a couple of bags worth at most.
Buses could be a bit more frequent here, but they're still good enough that I don't have a hard cut off for when I have to leave the office. I lose maybe 7-8 hours a week on my commute, which is time I'd spend reading anyway.
This was 20 years go. I actually wish Segways became a thing. They could climb stairs, took up less area and could carry a heavy load balanced by the gyros.
> Maybe in NYC they have it figured out, but the trade off is everything cost crazy money.
Yes, living in Manhattan and Brooklyn, this was not a problem. Manhattan had a supermarket on every block. Brooklyn was a little farther, but the variety and quality of the food was excellent. This was a while ago, so don't remember how prices stacked up. Just that on an NYC salary, food was affordable for our family.
Lived in Tokyo and Osaka, but most of that time didn't have to cook much. But remember groceries being very accessible in walking distance.
Vacations in various cities in Italy and Paris, groceries were accessible, very high quality, and affordable.
So I think walkable grocery shopping is a good experience in NYC and big cities outside the US. But probably not great in the median US city.
Groceries were a total PITA, maybe if you order a lot of delivery it’s fine, but we cook every meal and needed at least a granny cart at least once a week. And small grocers nearby had terrible vegetables; there is a lot of variance in supermarket quality. Maybe in NYC they have it figured out, but the trade off is everything cost crazy money.
I commuted by bus for this time to work, an hour each way and my hours were beholden to an infrequent bus schedule — it knee capped my career because I had to leave at hard cutoff and never could meet up for lunch or happy hour, and lost 10-15 hrs a week on a bus.
Even subway is so-so, unless they run every 5 minutes and you live and work on top of statio can add up fast, and transferring lines adds a ton of time.
Huge regret trying to live car free in an American city (not NYC).