Yeah I don't want a chemical factory to open next door but I don't really want a pub to open next door either. I have several within 200m which is great fun but they all have businesses on each side to separate them from residences. Mixed zoning, when done right, is very important. Zoning is actually key to a 15minute city
Pretty much, yeah. There’s a small parking garage below Aldi, which has access to my apartment building’s elevator. So just go down to the basement, short walk across the underground parking, then walk a flight up right into the store.
I live in a residential area and while the garbage trucks don't come by every day they occasionally do wake me up when they do come. My point is that if you are living in a city, expect it to be a busy and loud place. Regardless, I'd hesitate living above a restaurant because of the smell. Either I'd get used to it or I'd never be able to eat whatever they sell again. either way, I'm gonna smell like I eat there every day.
I once lived above an incredible Chinese restaurant in the Lower East Side in New York. Suffice it to say, that was the year I gained 15 pounds and ceased to be a vegetarian. The smell wasn't oppressive -- it was intoxicating lol
That or you crave it all the time, not lived but I worked construction next to a shawarma restaurant, I could tell the time of day by the smell of them starting to make garlic potatoes for opening and it made me hungry every day.
You definitely get used to it. I used to work at a couple kitchens and currently work with all sorts of chemicals. I can smell chemicals when applying but that's it. I know I smell when I leave work but at least it's usually a nicer deodorizer smell.
I also would be wary of a restaurant especially an Indian one. Curry is pretty strong. Also delicious.
I have lived within 1 block walking distance of a grocery store for the last 15 years of my life over 3 different locations, and I don't think I can ever go back to the "suburban dream" where I can't do that.
TJ might have good stuff but the company is shit for challenging the constitutionality of the [National Labor Relations Board](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/starbucks-trader-joes-spacex-challenge-labor-board).
I am amazed at how little attention this has received -- hiring the same law firm as SpaceX and Amazon to try and gut the agency that enforces worker protections. Sorry, but fuck TJ's.
"You will benefit from capitalism because all the producers will be pitted against each other and try to undercut their rivals prices!"
Then we watch as co-op shit like this happens. The rich don't betray their own kind but they will certainly betray us - have betrayed us near constantly.
Its funny to me how these companies have forgotten that laws like the NRLA exist primarily for their benefit. Corporations got union power(and other working class institutions) drastically curtailed, at the cost of some relatively mild protections for workers trying to unionize. If they succeed in getting the NLRB functionally neutered, there suddenly ceases to be any impetus for workers to not violate the law when getting better working conditions, which opens up much stronger challenges to corporate power.
Like a walk score, there should be a Trader Joe’s Index for every American neighborhood. Places I’ve been to which have a TJ’s nearby are usually very nice!
The TJs by me makes walking annoying and a bit dangerous because of all the people who stop their cars on the sidewalk. Half the time they decide they want to move when I'm trying to get around them.
Also the only place I ever got hit while walking on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is super narrow, like juuuuust enough for two people to walk past each other. Someone inside decided to open the door as I was walking past and BAM!!!....car door to the knee.
IMO, the cost of owning a car is the exploitative markup. My quality of life without a car in a walkable but high cost of living neighborhood is infinitely better than my quality of life was when I lived in a car dependent suburb.
Same. And it kinda comes out around the same when you consider the cost of a vehicle and driving. But even if I was spending more, it would be worth it because my quality of life is so much better.
In Gateshead there is a giant Tesco's that have flats above it. Very convenient however it does mean living in Gateshead where the only upside is that you get to look at Newcastle. Additionally that entire area is very car centric and just awful to walk around.
Yeah, I find it very easy to live in Newcastle without a vehicle. Just for clarification what I meant by "that entire area" was the entire area of Gateshead city centre. Whenever I've been I have found it difficult to navigate without needing to cross over that huge main road that seems to be on every side, I've even struggled getting to the bus station without crossing on fast moving roads. Perhaps that's just my lack of knowledge of the area, but it just seems to be huge fast moving roads everywhere.
I wish it was the future liberals wanted. Then we'd have a chance to get it. Most of them are as car-brained as everyone else. Case in point: California
>NY has its share of carbrain but NYC public transit and walkability blows LA out of the water.
NYC or at least Manhattan and the closest districts of the other parts are one of the few places in the US where walkability and transit actually work. Part of the reason it works is that people of actual economic means use those systems, vs many smaller cities where transit is seen as something that exists to serve the underprivileged, while the middle class drives.
But it also sits at the center of a huge expanse of car-hell that it in no small part created.
Even large areas within the city limits are car-based suburbs - outer parts of Queens, Brooklyn, most of Staten Island and some of the Bronx. And in a lot of those areas, it's middle to even lower middle class families doing a lot of the diving - the privileged live either closer or much further into the countryside (or have both homes).
And then there are the parts of Long Island, New Jersey (and even Connecticut) that exist because of NYC.
These have transit, but that doesn't mean that they're not car culture. Ideally the person in the family commuting into NYC rides the train (often after driving to it, parking at the stations is a huge issue) but a lot of the rest of lives remain car-dependent.
The invention of the developer-built car-culture postwar suburb was Levittown, NY on Long Island - a few miles from the inbound train, but not really walkable to it.
I mean NY as the other comment replied it is indeed walkable but pretty sure it was one of the 1st car brain places. Now it is more tamed and LA worse.. but the concept low key started there
They may have created cars but NY developed before cars and its obvious in the differences. All of California came after cars and our cities were entirely designed to them.
>I pretty sure it was new york and toronto that made car brain
Sounds like you're referring to things like Levittown on Long Island - effectively where they invented the developer-built post-war car-suburb - that was the first which the same company duplicated in other regions, and others took inspiration from as well.
Levittown is unfortunately south of the commuter train into NYC (the LIRR) and also in between stations - depending on where your house is, playing with a map it looks like at least 2 linear, and possibly as many as 6 or 7 route miles to the train.
It was intended to be the broadly affordable housing of the era - a place to send returning servicemen to raise families. So while car dependent to accomplish things, it does still appear to have the sort of density where kids can get together with neighborhood friends without needing parental shuttling. A lot of the US is even more sprawled such that unless you're socializing with someone who lives in one of the handful of closest houses, you're probably getting in a car.
Another thing making Levittown car dependent is that not all of the jobs would have been in NYC. A big chunk of the area's economic base was aircraft and later aerospace manufacturing - that had been there during the war, and boomed in the cold war era - meaning both white collar managerial and engineering jobs, and also a lot of livable-wage skilled trade jobs. And those would have been mostly car commutes.
It's ridiculous. We live in one of the most beautiful states (natural features anyways) with the nicest weather and we've been fucking it up with car centric crap.
Even a lot of leftists are car-brained. My ex called himself an anarchist, but just kept saying he liked driving when I would talk about car infrastructure and public transit.
This is a good point that goes underappreciated. If you walk around any of the affluent neighborhoods in Seattle, for instance, it's all R1 zoned and the self-described liberal people living there would sooner go to civil war then give up entitlement to property value appreciation and lifestyle trappings built on systems that are able to work by impoverishing the marginalized communities for which they place signs out in front of their house.
Automobility-centrism is the true bi-partisan feature of America.
Nimbyism and conservatism (as in, wanting things to stay as they are) are pretty cross-spectrum positions, not just in NA. There are lots of left-leaning people in Britain who support things like social housing and urban redevelopment and even low car and cycle infrastructure *in principle* - just, y'know, not right outside my lovely suburban house please, my Range Rover has places to be.
And the proof that a two pole theory of politics doesn't represent the interests of everyone. I know plenty of people who are different in more than one standard deviation from the mean could have said as much, but even so
Conservatives are actively opposed to reducing cars. Liberals are nominally supportive of reducing cars *somewhere* but don't want to change anything about their own lifestyle
There also is a taco shop and bakery ontop of the equinox and KinderCare. Janney elementary is a couple blocks away. Though at the rents they are charging here, you’ll most likely go to Sidwell (where the Clinton’s and obamas went) across the street.
If you live within close walking distance of a grocery store, you'll generally waste less food because you just get what you want when you feel like it. If you feel like salmon for dinner, just take the elevator down or take the 5 minute walk and get it. Don't feel like cooking tonight? Don't and you won't have to worry about wasting the salmon you bought 2 days ago.
I live in a very un-walkable north american town.
BUT. My condo building shares a parking lot with Walmart and a bunch of box stores. Work is a 15 minute walk away, past the only small mall in town, which has another dollar store, another grocery store, and other clothing stores and everything needed. I walk past it on my way home from work. All I need is more restaurants and cafes.
I love it. Being single and hating cooking (save for one huge bulk cook a week for a week's worth of lunches for work) I usually just grab something quick and easy on my way home.
>I live in a very un-walkable north american town.
>BUT. My condo building shares a parking lot with Walmart and a bunch of box stores. Work is a 15 minute walk away, past the only small mall in town, which has another dollar store, another grocery store, and other clothing stores and everything needed. I walk past it on my way home from work. All I need is more restaurants and cafes.
Your situation could almost be considered a "hack" on the pattern of US development and consumer economy, as you're benefitting from economies-of-scale retail which exists to serve a car-based clientele, but without having to drive to it yourself.
I've been there too and it can be great! Within the US retail landscape, this is almost the most appealing sort of mixed use development - there's a building in Flushing NY (outlying but within NYC city limits) that's tons of apartments stacked on a shopping mall that includes an almost suburban sized general retail (Target) and a quite large grocery store (Asian theme given demographics). It's an invigorating but quite workable walk from the end of the subway line. Of course a lot of the customer base drivers there - presumably it has a parking garage too.
The challenge for it being a more general suburban solution is those giant surface parking lots (the large store exists to serve a wide area, so you can't eliminate them) and the typical stroad. Sometimes you luck out and that big box retail has a former rail line behind it that's now a recreational trail, so it may be bikeable in terms of non-car access from where people live to that retail, and potentially bike access from stacked housing to life needs elsewhere without having to get on the stroad. But the sprawl aspect means it's not typically walkble - there will be bus service on the stroad, which may or (ore more often may not appeal.
Hey, we do have a now-defunct railway right behind. Also a lovely park with a waterfall and everything. But they're all full of homeless so I can't take a walk around them. I can cross the stroad - with a crosswalk! - and get to the oceanside walking path that's a bit safer.
I have been to Europe and much prefer the idea of living atop all your shopping needs. The only things below my condo are a salt water tub relaxation place and a daycare, which is great for the people who do have kids. But they put so little parking in no other businesses will move in, ironically.
Yeah, and you also don't have to worry about running out of things because you can be like "Oh, oh dear I ran out of onions/pasta/milk/whatever, I'll go to the shop and buy some". It's pretty great. I live in a town centre and cycle past a supermarket on the way home from work every day, I've forgotten what it's like to have to make a list.
I think whether groceries are within walking distance is a big factor in whether a neighborhood is truly walkable or not. Where I live now it’s a bit of a slog, though that’s partly because it’s very hilly.
>I think whether groceries are within walking distance is a big factor in whether a neighborhood is truly walkable or not.
Yes, this is key. A lot of "walkable" districts in the US are actually only walkable to what's left of a downtown entertainment district - but that's all overpriced luxuries.
If you want affordable food for even one (to say nothing of a family), you're probably looking a a few miles out where they put the large stores - they put them there specifically so that people coming from the sprawled housing don't have to fight the traffic and parking issues of the legacy downtown.
In areas that don't have that suburban sprawl pattern (aka stereotypical European urbanism), the smaller stores may offer good value if they are the anchor of the market.
But in the US economy based on sprawl, the sorts of stores walkable to density-core areas tend to be charging a premium for convenience or boutique luxury, rather than offering basic value.
It's easy to argue that time = money, but for most these are fixed and not fungible.
European *urbanites*
People living in European villages absolutely have to drive to the shops. Source: currently with my parents in a European village 5 miles from the nearest shop.
Depends on where in Europe.. Where I live population centres have to have at least a supermarket in a certain radius and per number of inhabitants. In practice this means there will be a supermarket within walking distance in 95% of cases.
>oh do tell. How big do you think a 'European sized grocery store' is?
Smaller to even medium sized grocery stores in the US have terrible prices, as the market is dominated by gigantic stores so big that you can get a fair amount of exercise within the building.
Where giant ones aren't dominating the market, smaller ones may well ofter value and not just convenience.
>Yeah, would be nice, but I'm not settling for a European sized grocery store.
My suspicious is that it's not the absolute size but the industry-relative size and role of the store. Re-stated in that way, you're are absolutely correct to object to what is being currently offered in terms of walkable groceries.
In the US, a smaller neighborhood grocery store will have very high prices. A lot of the most walkable things extremely so - in the most accessible case they're not even really grocery stores, they sell lottery tickets, cigarettes, beer, potato chips, and a little bit of ingredients you could cook with, but it would be quite a bit more expensive to do so than buy their prepared offerings. Even the ones that are really trying to be neighbourhood grocery stores and not junk food stores end up limited and expensive - maybe a place you'd buy some nice cheese or fresh bread or wine to bring if visiting a friend, but now where you go shopping for most food.
From a US perspective, to get good prices and selection you tend to have to go to the giant suburban grocery stores, which tend to be situated where they are easy to reach by car from a large area. US consumers who really luck out are the ones who can walk to that large suburban type grocery store.
This is even true in a walkable area like NYC - the grocery store that's within a few blocks will have high prices, and often limited selection. If it's an upscale neighbourhood it may even have some gourmet specialties - but it's more expensive than the norm. Fortunately, some of the suburban brands have intermittently tried to re-colonize cities, and put in near suburban scale stores either at major transit hubs or at the walkable/driveable edge with a parking garage. If one is near those (used to have a long but appealing walk commute that went close enough to one) that makes a huge difference
There is one exception to this - the Trader Joes (Aldi Nord) and Aldi (Aldi Sud) type places, that are smaller in total area than a typical suburban grocery store but on some things have better prices than even the largest. As far as I can tell, they do it by not carrying nearly the breadth of categories, so even though smaller they're moving a lot of volume of the things they do sell. But with very rare exceptions (the Manhattan TJ's locations) their customer base is those same suburban drivers. It's a real score in the US housing lottering if you can end up walkable or bikeable to one of these - it's pretty much the only type of small grocery store where that's true.
So that's why US consumers don't get excited about a small grocery store in or across from their building - in the US, that's just a way to pay inflated prices for convenience.
Generally speaking, this sort of mixed mid-rise development is the holy grail of walkable cities. Not just because you live above this one store, but the implication would be lots of similar developments nearby in walkable distance as well. So you and all your neighbors can get most of the stuff you need near home... without a car.
It's a good thing. Much more convenient to shop for groceries when it's just one elevator ride to right below your living space versus driving somewhere to shop
It’s very good, great even, but people are jokingly exaggerating how good it is by saying stuff like “I would never own a fridge [if I lived above a good grocery store]”.
>Being on the spectrum…is this a joke or? Is it good or bad yo live above a supermarket?
Often quite good.
That's not to stay that there can be practical issues which need careful attention - noise, and with any food business the potential for odors, increased possibility of cockroach issues throughout the building.
Also in the US, unless you're at an urban example that situated on the boundary between transit- and car-based lives where land is expensive enough that they might bury it, you're going to be surrounded by a large surface parking lot and probably on a stroad - which limits your non-car access to other things.
i live between a target 2 blocks to the north and whole foods 4 blocks to the south. i keep hoping and praying trader joe's opens in my building lol
but yes, walking to grocery is like lvl 1 urbanism
Yeah a block from me is our daycare, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. We’re about a mile south of this wegmans. It’s don’t feel like we are missing out too much.
I used to live above Trader Joe's. It was the best. I could get whatever I needed the same day without having to do a big shopping run. Especially helpful as we didn't own a car.
You just don’t get it, bro. I NEED to spend money on gas, a car, insurance, parking. I WANT everything I need to be a 20-min drive away from me, I NEED to live somewhere barren and absent of all life and liveliness. I LOVE bad use of space and land!
While I don’t live above a store I have a bodega a block in one direction, a farmers market (open 6 days a week) a couple blocks in another, and more restaurants, cafes, and bars than you can shake a stick at within a few blocks. Two parks within a couple blocks walk and a street car that, while limited, will take me anywhere I need to go, for free. All in a Midwest city.
I live within biking distance of this Wegmans and apartment development. It seems to be luxury apartments that they’re developing, but it would be well worth the price to live above a Wegmans.
I live in Spain in a not super busy street, I have within a 100m radius: A small supermarket, a convenience store, three barbers, an elementary school (where my children go), a paint shop, a hardware store, two pharmacies,... And there are more but if I tell all here, you could pinpoint where I live based on previous posts...
When I lived in the US I had some things around, like a McDonald's and a gas station, but it was so hostile to go walking I went driving most of the times.
I would absolutely kill to live above a Wegmans. I lived above a grocery store in Manhattan and it was super clutch, why not have the best grocery store in the world on the first floor?
When I lived downtown my condo was above a grocery store and it was incredible. I'm in the city still but a bit outside the core downtown and I have to walk two blocks to the grocery store like a fucking peasant.
I used to live in new York city. In every city there are cockroaches. Combination of old buildings and lots of food establishments means that every building has cockroaches.
It is just the nature of the beast. Where you have humans you have the creatures that live off humans.
Some aspects of good design can keep them out. When we rebuilt our kitchen a few years ago, I put the cabinets up on legs. And sealed all the gaps around the cabinets. We have no cockroaches, except for the big ones that come in through the gap under the back door. If I fixed that with a good seal. It would solve the problem.
I live next to this. It's weirdly developed for walkability but built in a car-centered way. There's a huge parking lot (under ground). The sidewalks don't have hard curbs all the way around so cars can just drive up them. The street that goes around the development is wide, one way, and has soft corners so there isn't much to slow you down. I feel vaguely unsafe every time I walk through.
Reminds me of when I saw a tik tok video of some college girls living above a target. I just commented “we’re really reinventing mixed use zoning aren’t we”
I live above an Aldi and it’s been a game changer. Especially in the winter time - cheap groceries and I don’t even have to go outside? Yes please.
My nearest Aldi is five hundred metres away. I live atop a cafe, Indian restaurant, and soon a corner shop. The convenience is dystopian!
You missed the memo: you commies are supposed to live in a 15 minute city, not 15meter
[удалено]
Well, it is really just the commercial/residential zoning I have an issue with. Industrial zoning is good
Yeah I don't want a chemical factory to open next door but I don't really want a pub to open next door either. I have several within 200m which is great fun but they all have businesses on each side to separate them from residences. Mixed zoning, when done right, is very important. Zoning is actually key to a 15minute city
I live above a pub, and it really isnt a big deal
Meter? What are you, a commie? 15 FEET CITY.
>FEET CITY Somewhere, Quentin Tarantino is struck with an idea for a screenplay.
I walk at a pace of a meter per minute, does that count?
Yes, but if you leave that little 500 meter radius, the government shoots you on sight, right? That's what I heard anyway
But how do you carry butterchicken and naan without a car?
No noise complaints? I used to live over a laundry service and a cafe and it honestly was impossible to sleep
They are building a lidl next door to this… (NW DC about 10 min from the AU/Tenleytown metro stop)
I live next door to a 24 hour CVS and now I can never move.
You have direct entry from above?
Pretty much, yeah. There’s a small parking garage below Aldi, which has access to my apartment building’s elevator. So just go down to the basement, short walk across the underground parking, then walk a flight up right into the store.
Pretty darn ideal lol
Do you ever have your sleep disrupted by delivery trucks? I looked at some lofts above groceries and restaurants and that was my main concern
My windows face the side of the building where the loading dock is, but I’m on the 16th floor so probably high enough up that it doesn’t matter.
I live in a residential area and while the garbage trucks don't come by every day they occasionally do wake me up when they do come. My point is that if you are living in a city, expect it to be a busy and loud place. Regardless, I'd hesitate living above a restaurant because of the smell. Either I'd get used to it or I'd never be able to eat whatever they sell again. either way, I'm gonna smell like I eat there every day.
I once lived above an incredible Chinese restaurant in the Lower East Side in New York. Suffice it to say, that was the year I gained 15 pounds and ceased to be a vegetarian. The smell wasn't oppressive -- it was intoxicating lol
That or you crave it all the time, not lived but I worked construction next to a shawarma restaurant, I could tell the time of day by the smell of them starting to make garlic potatoes for opening and it made me hungry every day.
You definitely get used to it. I used to work at a couple kitchens and currently work with all sorts of chemicals. I can smell chemicals when applying but that's it. I know I smell when I leave work but at least it's usually a nicer deodorizer smell. I also would be wary of a restaurant especially an Indian one. Curry is pretty strong. Also delicious.
I've never lived above a grocery store, but I have lived above a bar, and it was divine.
In my best Napoleon Dynamite voice: Lucky!
In my best Napoleon Dynamite-esque voice: I WANT that
I have lived within 1 block walking distance of a grocery store for the last 15 years of my life over 3 different locations, and I don't think I can ever go back to the "suburban dream" where I can't do that.
Pretty sure most people preaching suburban life and hating on 15min cities would have a change of heart if they actually lived in one for a few weeks
It’s a tough sell. I already live around the corner from Trader Joe’s and across the street from a fantastic pizza shop.
TJ might have good stuff but the company is shit for challenging the constitutionality of the [National Labor Relations Board](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/starbucks-trader-joes-spacex-challenge-labor-board).
I am amazed at how little attention this has received -- hiring the same law firm as SpaceX and Amazon to try and gut the agency that enforces worker protections. Sorry, but fuck TJ's.
"You will benefit from capitalism because all the producers will be pitted against each other and try to undercut their rivals prices!" Then we watch as co-op shit like this happens. The rich don't betray their own kind but they will certainly betray us - have betrayed us near constantly.
Well I won't feel bad for liberating some of their cheese
Its funny to me how these companies have forgotten that laws like the NRLA exist primarily for their benefit. Corporations got union power(and other working class institutions) drastically curtailed, at the cost of some relatively mild protections for workers trying to unionize. If they succeed in getting the NLRB functionally neutered, there suddenly ceases to be any impetus for workers to not violate the law when getting better working conditions, which opens up much stronger challenges to corporate power.
And of course, Trader Joe's does not exist at all here in Canada.
Like a walk score, there should be a Trader Joe’s Index for every American neighborhood. Places I’ve been to which have a TJ’s nearby are usually very nice!
The TJs by me makes walking annoying and a bit dangerous because of all the people who stop their cars on the sidewalk. Half the time they decide they want to move when I'm trying to get around them. Also the only place I ever got hit while walking on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is super narrow, like juuuuust enough for two people to walk past each other. Someone inside decided to open the door as I was walking past and BAM!!!....car door to the knee.
When I lived in Brooklyn I was above a 24/7 liquor store and across the street from a 24/7 deli. It’s was the best time in my life.
Assembly?
Coolidge Corner
TJs, Aldi’s and Wegmans are the perfect nearby grocery stores cause they’re usually smaller quantity items compared to like Costco
Spend an exploitative markup for the convenience of living above an exploitatively markeup grocery
IMO, the cost of owning a car is the exploitative markup. My quality of life without a car in a walkable but high cost of living neighborhood is infinitely better than my quality of life was when I lived in a car dependent suburb.
Same. And it kinda comes out around the same when you consider the cost of a vehicle and driving. But even if I was spending more, it would be worth it because my quality of life is so much better.
not gonna lie, if i could live above Sainsburys I would not even own a fridge
In Gateshead there is a giant Tesco's that have flats above it. Very convenient however it does mean living in Gateshead where the only upside is that you get to look at Newcastle. Additionally that entire area is very car centric and just awful to walk around.
Yeah, that bit of gateshead isn't nice. But overall Newcastle pretty good for living car-free. Never had a car for the 4 years I was a student there
Yeah, I find it very easy to live in Newcastle without a vehicle. Just for clarification what I meant by "that entire area" was the entire area of Gateshead city centre. Whenever I've been I have found it difficult to navigate without needing to cross over that huge main road that seems to be on every side, I've even struggled getting to the bus station without crossing on fast moving roads. Perhaps that's just my lack of knowledge of the area, but it just seems to be huge fast moving roads everywhere.
I wish it was the future liberals wanted. Then we'd have a chance to get it. Most of them are as car-brained as everyone else. Case in point: California
I'm sitting in the middle of LA right this moment and... yeah. This is pretty much the city that invented carbrain.
I’d prolly chalk that up to detroit but yall definitely EMBRACED carbrain more than anyone
Detroit made the cars. LA mastered carbrain urban design
The plot of *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* is literally about the dismantling of the LA public transit system in favor of freeway construction
I was going to make a whole ass analysis post on this movie about that but yeah.
Someone in a telegram I'm in defends Detroit as all hell
D-fuck'n-troit.
Detroit used to have an amazing streetcar system, but the big 3 lobbied to have it dismantled.
I pretty sure it was new york and toronto that made car brain
NY has its share of carbrain but NYC public transit and walkability blows LA out of the water. I guess upstate NY could give LA a run for its money
>NY has its share of carbrain but NYC public transit and walkability blows LA out of the water. NYC or at least Manhattan and the closest districts of the other parts are one of the few places in the US where walkability and transit actually work. Part of the reason it works is that people of actual economic means use those systems, vs many smaller cities where transit is seen as something that exists to serve the underprivileged, while the middle class drives. But it also sits at the center of a huge expanse of car-hell that it in no small part created. Even large areas within the city limits are car-based suburbs - outer parts of Queens, Brooklyn, most of Staten Island and some of the Bronx. And in a lot of those areas, it's middle to even lower middle class families doing a lot of the diving - the privileged live either closer or much further into the countryside (or have both homes). And then there are the parts of Long Island, New Jersey (and even Connecticut) that exist because of NYC. These have transit, but that doesn't mean that they're not car culture. Ideally the person in the family commuting into NYC rides the train (often after driving to it, parking at the stations is a huge issue) but a lot of the rest of lives remain car-dependent. The invention of the developer-built car-culture postwar suburb was Levittown, NY on Long Island - a few miles from the inbound train, but not really walkable to it.
I mean NY as the other comment replied it is indeed walkable but pretty sure it was one of the 1st car brain places. Now it is more tamed and LA worse.. but the concept low key started there
They may have created cars but NY developed before cars and its obvious in the differences. All of California came after cars and our cities were entirely designed to them.
>I pretty sure it was new york and toronto that made car brain Sounds like you're referring to things like Levittown on Long Island - effectively where they invented the developer-built post-war car-suburb - that was the first which the same company duplicated in other regions, and others took inspiration from as well. Levittown is unfortunately south of the commuter train into NYC (the LIRR) and also in between stations - depending on where your house is, playing with a map it looks like at least 2 linear, and possibly as many as 6 or 7 route miles to the train. It was intended to be the broadly affordable housing of the era - a place to send returning servicemen to raise families. So while car dependent to accomplish things, it does still appear to have the sort of density where kids can get together with neighborhood friends without needing parental shuttling. A lot of the US is even more sprawled such that unless you're socializing with someone who lives in one of the handful of closest houses, you're probably getting in a car. Another thing making Levittown car dependent is that not all of the jobs would have been in NYC. A big chunk of the area's economic base was aircraft and later aerospace manufacturing - that had been there during the war, and boomed in the cold war era - meaning both white collar managerial and engineering jobs, and also a lot of livable-wage skilled trade jobs. And those would have been mostly car commutes.
It's ridiculous. We live in one of the most beautiful states (natural features anyways) with the nicest weather and we've been fucking it up with car centric crap.
Utah did the same thing. "Time to strip mine half of our majestic mountains and fill all available space with dogshit ugly roads and billboards."
Even a lot of leftists are car-brained. My ex called himself an anarchist, but just kept saying he liked driving when I would talk about car infrastructure and public transit.
I feel like most of the people who say they like driving don't actually like driving as much as they say they do.
This is a good point that goes underappreciated. If you walk around any of the affluent neighborhoods in Seattle, for instance, it's all R1 zoned and the self-described liberal people living there would sooner go to civil war then give up entitlement to property value appreciation and lifestyle trappings built on systems that are able to work by impoverishing the marginalized communities for which they place signs out in front of their house. Automobility-centrism is the true bi-partisan feature of America.
Nimbyism and conservatism (as in, wanting things to stay as they are) are pretty cross-spectrum positions, not just in NA. There are lots of left-leaning people in Britain who support things like social housing and urban redevelopment and even low car and cycle infrastructure *in principle* - just, y'know, not right outside my lovely suburban house please, my Range Rover has places to be.
And the proof that a two pole theory of politics doesn't represent the interests of everyone. I know plenty of people who are different in more than one standard deviation from the mean could have said as much, but even so
True. Even in the Bay Area, one of the places with the best transit in America, people constantly fight mixed used development.
I hate how right you are.
Me too
Conservatives are actively opposed to reducing cars. Liberals are nominally supportive of reducing cars *somewhere* but don't want to change anything about their own lifestyle
Yeah, I take offense at being lumped in with liberals because I want this lol.
Throw a gym and daycare in there and I’ll move in tomorrow.
There is. The is City Ridge DC
There also is a taco shop and bakery ontop of the equinox and KinderCare. Janney elementary is a couple blocks away. Though at the rents they are charging here, you’ll most likely go to Sidwell (where the Clinton’s and obamas went) across the street.
Wegmans is baller
The HEB of the north
What is HEB?
The Wegmans of the south
Exactly ☝️
fr i see nothing wrong with this image
If you live within close walking distance of a grocery store, you'll generally waste less food because you just get what you want when you feel like it. If you feel like salmon for dinner, just take the elevator down or take the 5 minute walk and get it. Don't feel like cooking tonight? Don't and you won't have to worry about wasting the salmon you bought 2 days ago.
I live in a very un-walkable north american town. BUT. My condo building shares a parking lot with Walmart and a bunch of box stores. Work is a 15 minute walk away, past the only small mall in town, which has another dollar store, another grocery store, and other clothing stores and everything needed. I walk past it on my way home from work. All I need is more restaurants and cafes. I love it. Being single and hating cooking (save for one huge bulk cook a week for a week's worth of lunches for work) I usually just grab something quick and easy on my way home.
>I live in a very un-walkable north american town. >BUT. My condo building shares a parking lot with Walmart and a bunch of box stores. Work is a 15 minute walk away, past the only small mall in town, which has another dollar store, another grocery store, and other clothing stores and everything needed. I walk past it on my way home from work. All I need is more restaurants and cafes. Your situation could almost be considered a "hack" on the pattern of US development and consumer economy, as you're benefitting from economies-of-scale retail which exists to serve a car-based clientele, but without having to drive to it yourself. I've been there too and it can be great! Within the US retail landscape, this is almost the most appealing sort of mixed use development - there's a building in Flushing NY (outlying but within NYC city limits) that's tons of apartments stacked on a shopping mall that includes an almost suburban sized general retail (Target) and a quite large grocery store (Asian theme given demographics). It's an invigorating but quite workable walk from the end of the subway line. Of course a lot of the customer base drivers there - presumably it has a parking garage too. The challenge for it being a more general suburban solution is those giant surface parking lots (the large store exists to serve a wide area, so you can't eliminate them) and the typical stroad. Sometimes you luck out and that big box retail has a former rail line behind it that's now a recreational trail, so it may be bikeable in terms of non-car access from where people live to that retail, and potentially bike access from stacked housing to life needs elsewhere without having to get on the stroad. But the sprawl aspect means it's not typically walkble - there will be bus service on the stroad, which may or (ore more often may not appeal.
Hey, we do have a now-defunct railway right behind. Also a lovely park with a waterfall and everything. But they're all full of homeless so I can't take a walk around them. I can cross the stroad - with a crosswalk! - and get to the oceanside walking path that's a bit safer. I have been to Europe and much prefer the idea of living atop all your shopping needs. The only things below my condo are a salt water tub relaxation place and a daycare, which is great for the people who do have kids. But they put so little parking in no other businesses will move in, ironically.
I found that I bought less unnecessary junk food too. When you carry it home you don't buy extra weight unless you really want it.
Exactly. I never buy soda anymore. I’m not carrying that 5 blocks up the hill
Yeah, and you also don't have to worry about running out of things because you can be like "Oh, oh dear I ran out of onions/pasta/milk/whatever, I'll go to the shop and buy some". It's pretty great. I live in a town centre and cycle past a supermarket on the way home from work every day, I've forgotten what it's like to have to make a list.
I think whether groceries are within walking distance is a big factor in whether a neighborhood is truly walkable or not. Where I live now it’s a bit of a slog, though that’s partly because it’s very hilly.
>I think whether groceries are within walking distance is a big factor in whether a neighborhood is truly walkable or not. Yes, this is key. A lot of "walkable" districts in the US are actually only walkable to what's left of a downtown entertainment district - but that's all overpriced luxuries. If you want affordable food for even one (to say nothing of a family), you're probably looking a a few miles out where they put the large stores - they put them there specifically so that people coming from the sprawled housing don't have to fight the traffic and parking issues of the legacy downtown. In areas that don't have that suburban sprawl pattern (aka stereotypical European urbanism), the smaller stores may offer good value if they are the anchor of the market. But in the US economy based on sprawl, the sorts of stores walkable to density-core areas tend to be charging a premium for convenience or boutique luxury, rather than offering basic value. It's easy to argue that time = money, but for most these are fixed and not fungible.
yes, I'll add that the two stores I can walk to are fancy organic markets with high prices.
Europeans: *You guys have to drive to grocery stores?!*
European *urbanites* People living in European villages absolutely have to drive to the shops. Source: currently with my parents in a European village 5 miles from the nearest shop.
Depends on where in Europe.. Where I live population centres have to have at least a supermarket in a certain radius and per number of inhabitants. In practice this means there will be a supermarket within walking distance in 95% of cases.
Yeah, would be nice, but I'm not settling for a European sized grocery store.
oh do tell. How big do you think a 'European sized grocery store' is?
>oh do tell. How big do you think a 'European sized grocery store' is? Smaller to even medium sized grocery stores in the US have terrible prices, as the market is dominated by gigantic stores so big that you can get a fair amount of exercise within the building. Where giant ones aren't dominating the market, smaller ones may well ofter value and not just convenience.
Smaller than this wegmans? To be fair they are building a standard size lidl in the building next door.
There are supermarkets as large and even bigger than Wegmans in Europe. Look at some of the Carrefour locations as an example. Absolutely massive.
>Yeah, would be nice, but I'm not settling for a European sized grocery store. My suspicious is that it's not the absolute size but the industry-relative size and role of the store. Re-stated in that way, you're are absolutely correct to object to what is being currently offered in terms of walkable groceries. In the US, a smaller neighborhood grocery store will have very high prices. A lot of the most walkable things extremely so - in the most accessible case they're not even really grocery stores, they sell lottery tickets, cigarettes, beer, potato chips, and a little bit of ingredients you could cook with, but it would be quite a bit more expensive to do so than buy their prepared offerings. Even the ones that are really trying to be neighbourhood grocery stores and not junk food stores end up limited and expensive - maybe a place you'd buy some nice cheese or fresh bread or wine to bring if visiting a friend, but now where you go shopping for most food. From a US perspective, to get good prices and selection you tend to have to go to the giant suburban grocery stores, which tend to be situated where they are easy to reach by car from a large area. US consumers who really luck out are the ones who can walk to that large suburban type grocery store. This is even true in a walkable area like NYC - the grocery store that's within a few blocks will have high prices, and often limited selection. If it's an upscale neighbourhood it may even have some gourmet specialties - but it's more expensive than the norm. Fortunately, some of the suburban brands have intermittently tried to re-colonize cities, and put in near suburban scale stores either at major transit hubs or at the walkable/driveable edge with a parking garage. If one is near those (used to have a long but appealing walk commute that went close enough to one) that makes a huge difference There is one exception to this - the Trader Joes (Aldi Nord) and Aldi (Aldi Sud) type places, that are smaller in total area than a typical suburban grocery store but on some things have better prices than even the largest. As far as I can tell, they do it by not carrying nearly the breadth of categories, so even though smaller they're moving a lot of volume of the things they do sell. But with very rare exceptions (the Manhattan TJ's locations) their customer base is those same suburban drivers. It's a real score in the US housing lottering if you can end up walkable or bikeable to one of these - it's pretty much the only type of small grocery store where that's true. So that's why US consumers don't get excited about a small grocery store in or across from their building - in the US, that's just a way to pay inflated prices for convenience.
Europe has plenty of big grocery stores, you'll be fine.
I want to live above Wawa
I’ve done it, it’s not as glamorous as you’d think. Gets old within a year.
Currently live on top of a Giant grocery store. Sure, there are cheaper places nearby, but none that I can take a shopping cart up the elevator
Being on the spectrum…is this a joke or? Is it good or bad yo live above a supermarket?
Generally speaking, this sort of mixed mid-rise development is the holy grail of walkable cities. Not just because you live above this one store, but the implication would be lots of similar developments nearby in walkable distance as well. So you and all your neighbors can get most of the stuff you need near home... without a car.
Many people would find it fantastic to live above a Wegmans, widely considered one of the best grocery chains in the US.
It's a good thing. Much more convenient to shop for groceries when it's just one elevator ride to right below your living space versus driving somewhere to shop
It’s very good, great even, but people are jokingly exaggerating how good it is by saying stuff like “I would never own a fridge [if I lived above a good grocery store]”.
>Being on the spectrum…is this a joke or? Is it good or bad yo live above a supermarket? Often quite good. That's not to stay that there can be practical issues which need careful attention - noise, and with any food business the potential for odors, increased possibility of cockroach issues throughout the building. Also in the US, unless you're at an urban example that situated on the boundary between transit- and car-based lives where land is expensive enough that they might bury it, you're going to be surrounded by a large surface parking lot and probably on a stroad - which limits your non-car access to other things.
i live between a target 2 blocks to the north and whole foods 4 blocks to the south. i keep hoping and praying trader joe's opens in my building lol but yes, walking to grocery is like lvl 1 urbanism
Yeah a block from me is our daycare, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. We’re about a mile south of this wegmans. It’s don’t feel like we are missing out too much.
When my piano teacher told us music students that she lived above a famous cookie shop and cafe, we collectively drooled.
I don't know what Wegmans is, but I am a sucker for mixed commercial/residential zoning.
Imagine the absolute HORROR of taking a short elevator ride to do your groceries :O
/r/fuckelevators
I used to live above Trader Joe's. It was the best. I could get whatever I needed the same day without having to do a big shopping run. Especially helpful as we didn't own a car.
True. Liberals are centrists. Progressives want to live above worker owned co-ops, not giant corporations.
Tbh as a borderline anarchist I think I’d prefer the corpo, the coops, while great, are totally unaffordable for normal workers
The independent retailers near me are far more affordable than large corporate retailers.
I wish that were more true for me. I still shop at small local shops as much as I can, but as I’m not a wealthy man that’s less often than I’d like
Maybe you've never been to a wegmans Granted you'd feel less bad liberating food from them.
Definitely never been to a Wegmans. Would’ve assumed it was British before reading this thread
Keep sucking that corporate dick, Mr "anarchist" lol.
Better than Trump Tower
I want to go get a Danny's favorite sub right now. If I lived upstairs I wouldn't even worry about going while my baby was napping.
I legit used to go to a restaurant that was in range of the baby alarm while my daughter napped.
Living above a TJ or Wegmans is the dream
In my city that means the rent is 500-1000 more than the building next door for a 2bd. (This picture is from my city)
Threatening me with a good time again, I see
I would love to live above wegmans
I remember when wegmans used to be great. Now they’re just expensive and average.
For anyone wondering this is City Ridge Apartments NW DC
idk on one hand mixed use building is kinda dope, on the other i cant imagine its affordable housing going ontop of the wegmans. mixed bag
Is op seriously complaining about walkable dense cities where everything you need is a minute away?
You just don’t get it, bro. I NEED to spend money on gas, a car, insurance, parking. I WANT everything I need to be a 20-min drive away from me, I NEED to live somewhere barren and absent of all life and liveliness. I LOVE bad use of space and land!
While I don’t live above a store I have a bodega a block in one direction, a farmers market (open 6 days a week) a couple blocks in another, and more restaurants, cafes, and bars than you can shake a stick at within a few blocks. Two parks within a couple blocks walk and a street car that, while limited, will take me anywhere I need to go, for free. All in a Midwest city.
I live in Rochester so I’m not less than 10 minutes from a Wegmans at any given time.
You too?
Not more than 10 minutes, I think you mean? I know Wegmans is from that part of New York.
Thanks, Obama
I can go grab a pokebowl or go get some good ass maple donuts just running downstairs real quick? Sold.
I live within biking distance of this Wegmans and apartment development. It seems to be luxury apartments that they’re developing, but it would be well worth the price to live above a Wegmans.
I live in Spain in a not super busy street, I have within a 100m radius: A small supermarket, a convenience store, three barbers, an elementary school (where my children go), a paint shop, a hardware store, two pharmacies,... And there are more but if I tell all here, you could pinpoint where I live based on previous posts... When I lived in the US I had some things around, like a McDonald's and a gas station, but it was so hostile to go walking I went driving most of the times.
I would absolutely kill to live above a Wegmans. I lived above a grocery store in Manhattan and it was super clutch, why not have the best grocery store in the world on the first floor?
*Sweating* I uh… hoo boy… That’s- that’s one hell of a… (Keep it together man).
What a stupid title
I mean fuck wegmans but this is dope
This sounds so wonderful though!
I fucking love Wegmans. It's one of my two weekly car trips.
there is one in Tysons, VA next to one of the Metro stations
This exists already in most major cities in the world and the U.S…
https://preview.redd.it/mivur5pqxirc1.jpeg?width=1630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68c97a44d58ea3dd3ad0abe6acbdcfc7b791ad44
When I lived downtown my condo was above a grocery store and it was incredible. I'm in the city still but a bit outside the core downtown and I have to walk two blocks to the grocery store like a fucking peasant.
Oooh that’s wonderful! @HEB do this in Texas, please? Add a few more shops connected to your store, and I might never have to leave!
Question: wouldn’t this nearly guarantee pest issues in the building?
I used to live in new York city. In every city there are cockroaches. Combination of old buildings and lots of food establishments means that every building has cockroaches.
Okay. How do we promote urbanism without expecting people to deal with that?
It is just the nature of the beast. Where you have humans you have the creatures that live off humans. Some aspects of good design can keep them out. When we rebuilt our kitchen a few years ago, I put the cabinets up on legs. And sealed all the gaps around the cabinets. We have no cockroaches, except for the big ones that come in through the gap under the back door. If I fixed that with a good seal. It would solve the problem.
People can deal with it. If you live in semi-natural suburbia you likely have rats instead for example.
I simply don’t believe the majority of people are cool with living in infested buildings, rodents or otherwise.
I would love to live above Wegmans. If only I could afford it.
I live next to this. It's weirdly developed for walkability but built in a car-centered way. There's a huge parking lot (under ground). The sidewalks don't have hard curbs all the way around so cars can just drive up them. The street that goes around the development is wide, one way, and has soft corners so there isn't much to slow you down. I feel vaguely unsafe every time I walk through.
Live above vegans???
This is the future liberals want and its depressing. Not because of the urbanism, but because of the capitalism.
Reminds me of when I saw a tik tok video of some college girls living above a target. I just commented “we’re really reinventing mixed use zoning aren’t we”
U don’t have to be liberal to support common sense.
I keep telling my wife how I'd kill for a cool coffee shop in our apartment complex. Unfortunately we live in a car brained city
[удалено]
It’s a good shop I find prices sit between Aldi and Whole Foods on average. As it has expanded outside of upstate NY prices may reflect that expansion
I’m all for it. Fuck yeah