this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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That's why you don't see 15 minute cities anymore. Capitalism already figured out that a few large stores allow you to hire more efficient numbers of employees, buy more for less, stock better variety, pass along some of the savings to customers and still make more profit than building lots and lots of repeated commercial infrastructure throughout residential areas. A return to that model would require more employees in low paying service jobs, and would sacrifice lower prices and better variety. Ironically, it would be far faster to use a car to skip from store to store to look for the best deals and the specific brands you want. I suppose we could also get rid of capitalism at the same time, but I'm not holding my breath. As much as I like the idea of walkable infrastructure, it comes at a cost that I am not sure many would be willing to pay.
It's very weird that it works all over Europe, but for some reason it's too expansive for America. It's almost like it's not an inevitable course of actions really actually.
Might have a wee something to do with the cost and availability of large parcels of land in and around cities in Europe versus North America. If Walmart thought this was a cost-effective approach, they'd be doing it, else they would likely be sued by their shareholders. To be clear, I am not making a value judgement on whether this should be the case.
If transit gets dense enough then isn't it walkable in an indirect manner?
I suppose, but then it isn't really any different than what we have now in the best of our cities worldwide. Unfortunately, it seems very few cities actually have the resources and the political capital to make that work.
Yeah. But until we deal with the affordability problem walkable cities aren't going to be a thing because it will be too expensive.