I lived without a driver's license for a good chunk of my adult life in places where you could shop relatively nearby. There's a few trade-offs people don't realize about.
1. Prices are higher since there aren't economies of scale.
2. Selection is much worse, and since product doesn't move the same way, it's going to be stuff that'll keep, so less fresh food, more processed foods. Packaged foods tend to be salty, oily, and sugary because those are the foods that can sit on a shelf unrefrigerated for a long time.
3. Since you can only buy what you can carry every step of the way, you tend to buy less stuff, so instead of stocking up on bulk goods you'll end up buying small amounts. This has 3 effects: First further driving up prices, second increasing waste since you're buying more packaging for less product, and finally increasing dependence on making sure you can immediately get to the store because you only have a small amount of food at home at any one time.
4. Sometimes (only about 11 months of the year) the weather sucks and you've got to go out in extreme cold, or extreme heat, or rain, and you don't have much of a choice since you don't have any food reserves to speak of.
Honestly, having a house with a yard and a decent car in the driveway is actually nice. I'm not opposed to communities where people can live the 15 minute city lifestyle, but I think the concern people have is that these elites want to use pretty words to cram us into sardine cans and take our freedom to live the way we want to live away. Some people *want* the sardine can life, but other people want wide open spaces, a yard, a garden, a swing set in the back yard and the garage stocked with a workshop.
1. Prices are higher since there aren't economies of scale.
2. Selection is much worse, and since product doesn't move the same way, it's going to be stuff that'll keep, so less fresh food, more processed foods. Packaged foods tend to be salty, oily, and sugary because those are the foods that can sit on a shelf unrefrigerated for a long time.
3. Since you can only buy what you can carry every step of the way, you tend to buy less stuff, so instead of stocking up on bulk goods you'll end up buying small amounts. This has 3 effects: First further driving up prices, second increasing waste since you're buying more packaging for less product, and finally increasing dependence on making sure you can immediately get to the store because you only have a small amount of food at home at any one time.
4. Sometimes (only about 11 months of the year) the weather sucks and you've got to go out in extreme cold, or extreme heat, or rain, and you don't have much of a choice since you don't have any food reserves to speak of.
Honestly, having a house with a yard and a decent car in the driveway is actually nice. I'm not opposed to communities where people can live the 15 minute city lifestyle, but I think the concern people have is that these elites want to use pretty words to cram us into sardine cans and take our freedom to live the way we want to live away. Some people *want* the sardine can life, but other people want wide open spaces, a yard, a garden, a swing set in the back yard and the garage stocked with a workshop.
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