How is driving to a costco, parking on a giant parking lot, walking through a massive store, loading up a cart, walking the the cart to your car/truck, unloading everything, returning the cart, and then driving home at all efficient?
People do giant shopping trips exactly because the whole process is so cumbersome.
The US has the longest commutes of any country in the world because of urban sprawl and zoning. Car-free cities offer an alternative to that way of life.
If you go once every 2 weeks, where do you get your fresh fruit and veggies? Do you just live off of frozen food? Do you plan all your meals 2 weeks ahead? What if you have people coming over for dinner on short notice?
Urbanites still have the option to go to a big-box grocery store. Mine is an 8-minute drive away, but we just never go there.
Ah, Costco isn't the only grocery store I go to. Roughly, I grocery shop once per week, alternating between Costco and other grocery stores where I buy fresh foods or smaller items that don't make sense from Costco.
My personal feeling is being able to stock up in bulk is a net timesaving benefit of car-centric living, BUT the tradeoff comes when you only need a few things from the store. On the one hand, it's only about once or twice a month that I need to go to the store because I need just 2-3 very specific things. However it's a major annoyance, and it'd definitely be nice to be able to walk a short distance to get them.
Didn't see any replies with specifics, so here's mine: Door-to-door, it takes me no more than 30 minutes for a shop, and I usually go 3 times every 2 weeks. So about the same as you. I wouldn't consider my location "lucky" either: there's 3 supermarkets alone within a 5 minute cycle from my house. Across most of the city, you're always going to be close to one.
> The US has the longest commutes of any country in the world
I lived in Mumbai starting 7:30 in morning I reach office by 10AM after changing buses and trains. Leave office at 6:30 -7 in evening and hit home by ~10 pm. And even those days I worked in IT so not exactly among poor who have to live far away.
Claiming US commute being longest is just ignoring how billions outside North America/Europe lives.
People do giant shopping trips exactly because the whole process is so cumbersome.
The US has the longest commutes of any country in the world because of urban sprawl and zoning. Car-free cities offer an alternative to that way of life.