My grocery store is 0.25 miles away. That’s the farthest I go within a month apart from the bank. I realize that it would be ableist to expect everyone to carry two tote bags full of groceries back from somewhere that far regularly walking, but like what if there could be a service for disabled people to fetch groceries that way in the neighborhood? I saw some old people walking recently in my neighborhood and was considering doing that for them in exchange for some pocket change I needed for the laundromat right next to the grocery store. The farthest I go on a regular basis is a 25 minute walk to get my cashier’s check my landlord requires for rent. The buses in this town are too slow and inconsistent for that to make sense for me. I’m actually very proud that I don’t drive and wish I could make errands for physically disabled people given my fitness.
I find myself comfortable month to month staying within that 0.25 square mile area. I recently went about 100 miles west to a California beach for a day and night and I feel like my ordinary lifestyle made it that much more profound in contrast. It’s strange how that sort of compression and expansion of a sense of everyday space can change the phenomenology of a place, make something feel bigger in an odd way. The ocean was so amazing.
And so it just kind of seems like there’s no singular amount of minutes that should define your lifestyle but rather like maybe concentric circles with no absolute outer bound. And so this is very open-ended. Sort of musing here. I could be wrong. I work from home.
I’d look at Japan as an example of how this can be well done. I spent a short time in a pretty rural Japanese suburb (like walking distance from farmland), but the place I stayed was a 10-minute walk from two 24-hour convenience stores along with several restaurants and other shops.
A big part of this is zoning - even in the most restrictive residential zone in Japan, you can build multi-family units and small shops, unlike in the US where most zoned land is single family housing only. Here’s a great video that goes into more detail on Japan’s zoning.
what if there could be a service for disabled people to fetch groceries that way in the neighborhood?
There’s Meals on Wheels but that’s more elderly centric, companies like blue apron or hello fresh that deliver ingredients for you to cook, also at least one of the larger chain grocers in my area offers delivery.
What do you define as a grocery store? I get 90% of my groceries at a corner shop which is just around the corner from me. It sells all the staples and is the size of a small rowhouse. My parents who live in a carbrained suburb are consistently amazed that I can nip over to the store if there’s something I need and be back in under 2 minutes. They are so used to big grocery shopping trips that take an hour and involve spending a couple hundred dollars and stocking up everything. I’m just like “whoops, I’m out of ketchup, better go grab some”. It completely changed the mentality I had toward groceries.
Well that’s a good point. I used to live in an even smaller town and had to walk only maybe a block to get to a little hispanic shop with two short aisles of groceries where I got everything I needed about every other day. I miss those times. There were these feral chickens roaming the little park I had to walk through and where I lived was the first place of my own. Good memories. I remember getting pork rinds too from that shop.
Anyway now I go to a big box grocery store kind of generic but also has a lot of hispanic products and style.
There was a time I lived in a different small town in a boarding house and would get extra snacks and food from the dollar general which was like a mile away. Sometimes I would be carrying two or three bags. I remember rummaging through their movie bins every time I went there to see if there were any must-haves. When I lived there I would also go the 7/11 and do basically the same routine.
You might want to travel, visit the Netherlands or Denmark. Bicycles and public transport allow you to have a wider circle, and connect them!
