> a Large Kroger or Walmart then expensive food and limited options from a corner NYC style "bodega"
There’s a lot in between those two extremes.
My favorite neighborhood I’ve lived in was on the Northside of Chicago where I had a medium-sized, independent grocery down the block on the local arterial road and a neighborhood of single family homes in the blocks surrounding it. The arterial roads have commerce, and the side streets have homes. You can walk, you can drive, take transit.
> I dont want to walk anywhere but from my front door to my car
Neighborhood stores will not have the volume to support a 100-300,000 sqfoot store, with all the selections I get at my local supermarket that services many many neighborhoods
Grocery stores around the corner do not work in spread out neighborhoods because the Krogers/Costcos/Albertsons/Walmarts will be able to offer lower price due economies of scale, and anyone with a car will choose to drive 10min, or stop on their way home, to save money rather than go to the higher priced grocery store around the corner.
Do you think larger grocery stores don’t exist in city downtowns?
I searched for Whole Foods locations and they seem to have about 13 in Manhattan itself. There’s a Costco in Manhattan. And there are several other major grocery stores some unique to New York. There are also large independent grocery stores and independent online grocery stores that will do hourly deliveries (the 15 mins deliveries thankfully seem to have largely died out).
And that’s before you get to the hundreds of farmers markets.
And how about all the butchers, seafood stores, cheese shops, spice stores, etc.
And then you get the international grocery stores with Korean, Japanese, Indian, Chinese grocery stores.
Ah, and you have 24/7 bodegas on newrly every corner if all those don’t work for you.
They work in Manhatten because of population density, the grand parent clearly said they do not work in "spread out neighborhoods"
So now we are shifting the goal posts from "walk-able neighborhoods" to walkbale high density neighborhoods. Not only do I oppose walkablity I also oppose High Density, I like my Single Family home on .75 acres of land or less.
I do not want to live stacked on top of others, if you want that stay in NYC. thanks
Every other reason eventually boils down to this very point.
Turns out, specialized districts were a massive city planning mistake.