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There used to be smaller grocery stores all over the place. Customers didn't like them due to high prices and limited selection. It's cheaper and more time efficient to drive to a big supermarket or Costco and load up your car with everything you need.



Do you have a source for this claim? All the urbanists will tell you that small grocery stores are a joy to use in Europe due to transit oriented development that makes quick trips by bike to grab groceries fast and easy. But in North America we’ve built out larger and larger car-centric developments which have become so hostile to anyone not in a car that people are forced to drive to the grocery store. This makes the experience way less enjoyable than a quick trip by bike to a small store, the urbanists will say.

So your claim is that small stores were essentially selected out of existence by customers, but it may in fact be the case that city planners destroyed walkability in a way that left big box stores as the only viable option. Those two things are not the same, as the theoretical “we could have more smaller stores accessible by bike and foot traffic” would be true in the latter case.

For a detailed argument see the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes: https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54


Small grocery stores in Europe are miserable to use. They're always missing some of the stuff I want. Customers will usually choose the big box stores when they have a reasonable way to get there, regardless of urban planning.


Here’s a video about why small grocery stores are better called “Why Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam”: https://youtu.be/kYHTzqHIngk

This is why I asked you for a source. We can play anecdote versus anecdote all day. In the absence of a source I’d be very curious what you think of any specific points made in the video.




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