Living in a walkable city means my weekly shop is a few hours of walking or biking instead of being stuck in traffic, and I’m only mildly tired afterwards since I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags. Since I have no car related costs I can afford more fresh food, a healthier diet, and I can afford to be more choosy about the ethics of what I buy. There’s a twice weekly farmers market about a ten minute walk away, and quiet walks through parks to get to the shops. Living somewhere with car centric infrastructure, as I used to, this lifestyle was far less feasible.

Have your experiences been different with moving to walkable/bikeable cities? Any questions or points to be made? I’m not very up on the theory side of city planning, but my experiences line up with the whole “fuck cars” thing.

  • @bstixEnglish
    4•21 days ago

    I’m blessed with a recently priced grocery store within 1-2 minutes walking (less than 200m/ 0.1mile). I have some nice large reusable bags, so no car needed for daily stuff.

    However, due to this, I also shop there every single day instead of making weekly trips. In weekly totals I still spend 10-20 minutes transport and probably a lot more spontaneous purchases than I would from just one weekly trip.

    Whenever we do plan weekly shopping, we usually use the car to go elsewhere because one shop doesn’t have all the things.

    However, I recently found an app that can plan the cooking recipes based on this one store, so I could potentially use a handcart and get everything in one walk. I haven’t done this yet though.

    • The Snark UrgeOPEnglish
      3•21 days ago

      There’s a balance to be struck between freshness and structure for sure.