You can walk too. 15 min walk or 1 minute drive. Nobody is forced to do anything, and for the longest time I’ve lived in suburbia without a car.
who drives for groceries? it’s a waste of time. I get everything delivered.
But, as a European, are you not surprised your government also imposes all sorts of regulations on your European housing? Just like the elected municipal government imposing zoning…in every European city too? You made it sound like anyone can just do whatever in Europe. Except cookies and GDPR, and all sorts of other regulations from shoes to how bad circulation in your house must be to compensate for your silly energy politics.
Not everywhere has an HOA. The reason for uniform standard is so that I don’t setup a crackden next to your house and devalue your largest asset by half a million dollars.
Pretty sure 10 annual European salaries is just pocket change to you and is of no consequence.
Everything I’ve read about American suburbs tells me you must be an exception - stores are usually much farther than a 15 minute walk, and often there are simply no sidewalks at all.
“Nobody is forced to do anything” is hand waving away all of the context around housing, jobs, city planning and transportation. There is a reason 99% of trips to the supermarket are made by car, it’s not simply a matter of “choice”: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2015/august/most-us-hou...
There is a reason why giant stores are not on every corner - they are designed to be huge warehouses that at times are large enough to service the entire city, given a small enough city.
It is definitely a matter of choice. The US as a country is just as large and diverse as EU. You can certainly live in a very dense city centre somewhere in North East that will be very much “European”, with public transit and everything. It would be too much hassle to even have a car.
Or you could live on a ranch somewhere hours away from “civilization”
People set up car repair shops, computer repair services and whatever else you can think of in their garages, because you know what - doing stuff in your garage actually lowers the bar to start a business.
And thru streets limited to 30kph are actually a very nice route for cycling.
And you know what? There's really no price difference between a house next to bakery, house next to a car repair shop or a house next to just other houses.
who drives for groceries? it’s a waste of time. I get everything delivered.
But, as a European, are you not surprised your government also imposes all sorts of regulations on your European housing? Just like the elected municipal government imposing zoning…in every European city too? You made it sound like anyone can just do whatever in Europe. Except cookies and GDPR, and all sorts of other regulations from shoes to how bad circulation in your house must be to compensate for your silly energy politics.
Not everywhere has an HOA. The reason for uniform standard is so that I don’t setup a crackden next to your house and devalue your largest asset by half a million dollars.
Pretty sure 10 annual European salaries is just pocket change to you and is of no consequence.