Polytoners from Atlanta?

[DanS]

Originally posted by Colon™

When Imran talks supermarkets, he means things like a Super Kroger. Imagine 3 Walmarts put together.

The Whole Foods are much smaller, but probably still a little bigger than your typical supermarket in Antwerp (just a guess).

[DanS]

Originally posted by Pekka
What if I don't have a car, what if I'm old or a kid or disabled?? "Get someone to drive you" ??

There's this new-fangled invention called a taxicab. You might try it.

[Pekka]

Well, I don't like cabs. I like walking. This is why I said it sounds like Africa. Everything is far and wide, especially the things you need every day and thus lots of time is spent commuting.

The point is, if there's no groceries around, then what is there? If you argue, that places of business can afford higher prices and there's not enough money in the food thingie if they want to keep lower prices... well, ok so with that logic... what do you actually have other than business buildings?

I mean what's the point of - this is where you live, right? To assume car is stupid IMO. It's not that I couldn't get one, it's that why should I need to have one in order to do basic stuff like buying food? It's ridiculous if you ask me. City design should focus on other things than spread stuff far and wide so you can avoid traffic jams so you never have to walk. If you never walk, you never meet anyone. If you're always driving, you're not meeting people, not seeing things, not smelling stuff, not moving your own body.

Now what is the point in that, that's exactly my question. If grocery store isn't a priority, then I don't know what is. It is considered very basic and a necessity in most places. That and other things as well. And what if that store doesn't have the milk I want? Sure, it might have a nice collection, but what if I want to shop around for food? What if they don't have my brand, what, do I have to take another drive to find out if that other one 2 miles apart has it?

No wonder you guys eat out so much

[Imran Siddiqui]

it's that why should I need to have one in order to do basic stuff like buying food?

Because you are going to be living in the US. When in Rome, do as the Romans do .

Just because you silly foriegners don't like driving doesn't mean you can simply forego it entirely. One would think if you like walking, a mile to the market wouldn't be that big an issue. What kind of person likes walking, but won't go farther than a half mile each direction?!!

[DanS]

Somehow I think you'll manage in the American concrete bush.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Pekka
See? Your infrastructure is clan like African society. In the center you place the fat man who is the leader of the clan. He doesn't make his own phone calls, he has people running his messages, just like in the Goodfellows. So then everyone who is the friend of the fat man gets to live next to him, beause it's right in the center so you don't have to move. The others? Too bad. The water pump is vital, but you have to walk a whole long way to get there and back. But you still need to be there every day. But that's OK, because the chief is so important to everyone, because he's a fat man who can't do anything. That's why he is precious.

So the fat man decides what is been built and where, and that's how you get Detroit. But of course the villagers are optimists, because if they weren't, they'd have to kill themselves so they choose to believe in the fat man even when they have to walk great distances to get water. Why? Because thanks to the fat man, they HAVE a water pump, right? And they have the right to walk so why not put them legs on a good use so they won't become like the fat man.

The optimism of villagers is perhaps the greatest placebo of all times. I mean look at it. From all the abandoned huts and stuff that went belly up because everything was screwed to begin with, well there's all kinds of interesting youth cultures coming up. All kinds of music and styles of dancing and not forget, all the latest designer drugs end up there to spread the spirit of creativity. In fact we should remove all water pumps to see just how creative the natives will get.

And just like Detroit, you recieve wealth not seen in society before amongst the working villagers. Now they can not only not buy groceries nearby, now they can go back to their own huts and not do anything. They can continue to not meet people, to not hang out outside or to say the drug crazed nude dancing is the work of the devil. I mean why would you ever spend money to make your environment nice and fun? There's no point in that. We can play monopoly with rocks in our huts or we can eat sand. We just need more megahuts so we can not go there and see it being demolished in the next decade. We like megahuts

That's even worse than FrostyBoy's troll

Don't compare Detroit to the rest of the US, Detroit is considered to be a crappy city even by most of its residents.

The problem is you're assuming Americans have the same residence structure of Europe; we don't. We have what is generally considered to be a superior organizational system of residential/commercial/etc., because we started from scratch much later on. Cities like Chicago etc. are very carefully laid out to take advantage of modern urban planning knowledge (Chicago was effectively built around 1900, after the fire); hence the very patterned layouts, the square blocks with major streets every half mile and smaller ones every eighth mile, etc.

The major thing is that, in America, people generally do not live in the urban center. The ony people who do are either: a) young singles who prefer to live near the dance clubs and such and/or live near the financial district to be near others of similar wealth, b) older (post-parenthood) wealthy adults who prefer to live where they can get upscale shopping/living and have shorter distances to travel, or c) too poor to leave their poor part of town.

If you have a family, you generally do not live in the city, you live in the suburbs (or the outer portions of the city); in those areas you have major stores every half mile to mile in the denser areas and more spread out in the less dense areas - but either way you own a car so it doesn't matter.

It's like you were playing SimCity. Do you put your residential area intermixed with your high-commercial and industrial? Of course not, you'd be a moron to do so. You put your residential with some light commercial in reasonable distance, and city center is high commercial with very small amounts of high residential. It's not quite that direct IRL, but the city ends up being that way, and for good reasons.

Europe does it very differently because, in most cases (excepting cases like Dresden I suppose) the cities are MUCH older, and are somewhat locked into how they are arranged; also, you have fewer cars and thus are forced to keep things closer. It's just a culture difference; don't tell us we're savages and we won't say the same about you :P

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Pekka
Well, I don't like cabs. I like walking. This is why I said it sounds like Africa. Everything is far and wide, especially the things you need every day and thus lots of time is spent commuting.

The point is, if there's no groceries around, then what is there? If you argue, that places of business can afford higher prices and there's not enough money in the food thingie if they want to keep lower prices... well, ok so with that logic... what do you actually have other than business buildings?

I mean what's the point of - this is where you live, right? To assume car is stupid IMO. It's not that I couldn't get one, it's that why should I need to have one in order to do basic stuff like buying food? It's ridiculous if you ask me. City design should focus on other things than spread stuff far and wide so you can avoid traffic jams so you never have to walk. If you never walk, you never meet anyone. If you're always driving, you're not meeting people, not seeing things, not smelling stuff, not moving your own body.

Now what is the point in that, that's exactly my question. If grocery store isn't a priority, then I don't know what is. It is considered very basic and a necessity in most places. That and other things as well. And what if that store doesn't have the milk I want? Sure, it might have a nice collection, but what if I want to shop around for food? What if they don't have my brand, what, do I have to take another drive to find out if that other one 2 miles apart has it?

No wonder you guys eat out so much

There are plenty of corner stores. You just don't have supermarkets. Land in the middle of a city is VERY EXPENSIVE and can't support lots of supermarkets... it's called the free market

You most certainly will have a supermarket within reasonable walking distance (~1mi) and corner stores closer than that, unless you live in the financial sector or something like that where people don't really live.

Perhaps you should consider actually coming here and spending some time before you make outrageous and insulting statements about another culture

[Colon™]

Originally posted by DanS
When Imran talks supermarkets, he means things like a Super Kroger. Imagine 3 Walmarts put together.

The Whole Foods are much smaller, but probably still a little bigger than your typical supermarket in Antwerp (just a guess).

Could be, but that isn't making any more sense of Imran's post.

The average size of a Delhaize supermarkt is about 2000 square m² and Colruyt 1400 m² (those 2 are of the big 3 in Belgium).

[Pekka]

No, you assume I assume things. You also assume European cities are similar within their structures. Who is the racist now?

Superior organizing, oh you mean like Hitler? He also wanted highways and a car for every German citizen. There's nothing superior about that. Superiority is a matter of taste in this regard, of course we can always agree and name cities that are screwed up in both of our minds.

What you think is organization is African hut builder's 2nd grade final exam test type of building. HERE YOU BE BUILDING BIZNEs. HERE is WHEIR PEPIL LIVE IN. HERE IS FAT MAN. THIS ROAD LEdas TO WATUR PUMPPS!

It's not about fast, it's not about space. It's about comfort and enjoying the place, it's about safety and just simply beautiful. That's it. And while you're at it, it can be also functional and enable some sort of logistical logic.

HERE BE THE SHIRTS SELLING PALCE sounds communist to me anyway.

snoopy, and for the record, I've spent more than 6 months of my life in the US, and I've toured it pretty intensively, more than most murricans. I speak your stolen language, my currency is much better than yours and on more healthy basis, I will be richer than the average fat american, I can walk and I like walking, I choose to not have a car because I don't have to have one, I don't wear yellow hat indicating my origin because I don't think I have to, I hate nazis and communists and I don't like your stinky pie either. There. Happy?

And yes the cities are older. It's called history. Culture is also a big part of history and vice versa. The way we like it. That's why we don't need to identify ourselves with cars and that's why it sounds completely ridiculous to us. IT's a thing! It's a... it's a box that moves, you get from point a to b with it. What the hell is so great about it? I don't get it. But I guess I'm dirty Euro dog And since when was the size of the supermarket the most important thing? It's about the food. You don't need a megamarket to have everything in it and plenty of choices. And no, microwave food isn't food. It's frozen ****.

[snoopy369]

Hmmm, that's pretty small by American standards. Supermarkets here would be more like 50,000 - 60,000 square feet at minimum, so around 6000 m². Anything much smaller would not be a supermarket. (Whole Foods, for example, opens most of their 'large stores' at 65,000 ft² or so, and their 'small stores' in the 25,000 ft² to 35,000 ft² range, which is still bigger than your listed above stores - ft² to m² conversion is between 9 and 10).

Corner stores (stores with milk, bread, eggs, and such) usually are something like 5,000-10,000 ft², and drug stores (which carry small groceries like the above) are 10,000-15,000 ft² and up; those are usually very common, particularly in areas with fewer supermarkets.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Pekka
blah, blah, blah

Get a ****ing car .

Guy who says he likes walking but balks at walking a mile to a grocery store.

[Pekka]

No, that's not the point. I WILL be walking there since I won't get a car. I just said it's stupid. I can walk without the necessary food shopping thing, it's not what I consider a walk or walking to places.

I won't get a car, just because you guys want me to get one, I say no, I'll only not get a car but I will in fact fart in your city a lot. I will fart and I will poo in your public toilets (if you have them, not a lot of money in it) and not flush the toilet to give you bacteria from Europe so your inferior immune system won't handle it. Yes. This I will do.

[Wittlich]

I am not sure about the East Coast, but out here on the West Coast there is the option to log onto your computer, do your shopping, and the grocery store will actually deliver the goods to your doorstep! Safeway comes to my mind, but there are probably others as well. There is normally a $19.95 service charge for the delivery, but if you order over $150, the delivery charge is waived ... so no need for a car or a taxi (or even a walk for that matter).

[Pekka]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!! Wittlich, seriously!½!!! wtf?! O can do it in here as well, but most people won't. Why? because it sucks, why would I want to order food via net? That doesn't make any sense to me.

[Pekka]

I've never felt more European than today. You guys are impossible.