I’ve heard the legends of having to drive to literally everywhere (e.g. drive thru banks), but I have no clue how far apart things are.
I live in suburban London where you can get to a big supermarket in 10 minutes of walking, a train station in 20 minutes and convenience stores are everywhere. You can get anywhere with bus and train in a few hours.
Can someone help a clueless British lemmyposter know how far things are in the US?
EDIT
Here are my walking distances:
- To the nearest convenience store: 250m
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 350m
- To the bus stop: 310m
- To the nearest park: 400m
- To the nearest big supermarket: 1.3km
- To the nearest library: 1.2km
- To the nearest train station: 1km
Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 16km
In the suburbs of a middle-sized city in Ohio, USA. So midwest, but a bit older, higher-density, and more northeastern suburban layout than, say, Iowa. Built up in the 1960s-70s. Almost all single-family suburban homes on large lots.
(these are walking distances, not straight lines)
- To the nearest convenience store: 1.6 km
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 4.2 km
- To the bus stop: 1.5 km
- To the nearest park: 226 meters
- To the nearest big supermarket: 2.1 km
- To the nearest library: 2.6 km
- To the nearest train station: Hahaha! (Ok, it’s actually 78 km, but it’s mostly worthless as a train station)
Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 6297 km
I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. My neighborhood isn’t the best for walkability – there are definitely better areas in this city in that respect.
To the nearest convenience store: 1.5km To the nearest chain supermarket: 1.9km To the bus stop: 140m To the nearest park: 480m To the nearest big supermarket: 5.8km To the nearest library: 1.9km To the nearest train station: 800m
Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 6450km
Everything around me is a 30 minute drive… except the mailbox, that’s just a 5 minute walk.
In a suburb of Boston, my distances would be very similar to OP, except the bus stop is much closer and I don’t have that nearby chain grocery.
But my brothers are all about 10h drive (my visit this summer was over 1,200 miles round trip) and my mom is 14h drive
250 m to the nearest mini market
400 to the nearest mini mall
1k to the railroad station
400 to the park
150 to the (unreliable) bus stop
Off topic, but after I moved halfway across the US, I wondered what that same distance would be driving across Europe.
I moved from the NW corner of Washington state to about the middle of Iowa, roughly 2000 miles or 3200 Km (roughly, I said)
Its looks to be the same as going from Lisbon to roughly halfway in between Berlin and Warsaw, using google maps to follow roadways.
I can’t imagine all of the different cultures you would see traveling most of the way through Europe, and most of what I saw on my trip through the States was empty dead grass fields, farmland, a couple dead deer, and a ton of truckers.
Rural southern Georgia: 300m to the only gas station/convenience store in town. 10km to the nearest real supermarket, medical center, pharmacy, tiny library, dentist, and a couple of restaurants. 30km to the nearest big box store (Walmart). 100km to the nearest small regional airport. 120km to train station.
I live in rural Oklahoma…
Here are my walking distances: * To the nearest convenience store: 4.667km * To the nearest chain supermarket: 24.140km * To the bus stop: 27.358km * To the nearest park: 321.869m * To the nearest *big* supermarket: 33.7962km * To the nearest library: 32.1869km * To the nearest train station: 70.8111km
+4600km to the nearest store is like, lots of walking, maybe more than 1h walk. I sad
Yeah, it’s an hour walk one way to that store…
Where I live owning a car is a requirement :(
I’m also in rural Oklahoma and it is about 9200m for me to get to the closest store, a Dollar General. So I don’t walk, but I do get to live in a beautiful forest next to a lake and stream.
I live in Atlanta, in an intown neighborhood that was once considered a “streetcar suburb” although the streetcars have been gone for decades. For a neighborhood with single-family houses, this is about as good as it gets in terms of urbanism and walkability. (Basically, to do much better you’d have to live in a high-rise in Downtown or Midtown because we don’t really have medium-density neighborhoods.)
Point is, my area is not representative of Metro Atlanta as a whole. Probably 90%+ of the metro area population would report distances at least double, if not an order of magnitude larger.
Walking distances:
- To the nearest gas station (“convenience store”): 0.7 miles (1.1 km)
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 1.2 miles (1.9 km)
- To the bus stop: 0.2 miles (320 m)
- To the nearest park: 0.9 miles (1.4 km)
- To the nearest big supermarket: 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
- To the nearest library: 0.7 miles (1.1 km)
- To the nearest MARTA station (“train station”): 1.9 miles (3 km) [Amtrak would be considerably further]
Straight-line distance to Capitol Building: about 3 miles (5 km).
I live in a VERY rural area. If I want to visit my neighbors, it’s at the very least a 10 minute walk. To buy groceries it’s about a 20 mi drive. If I want to go to a movie theater, it’s a 40 mile drive. It’s about a 70 mile drive to the closest city (sky scrapers and stuff)
There’s no public transportation or even sidewalks. The closest town that is 5 miles away has one stoplight and a population of 700 ish. We do have a few restaurants in town though, a school and a post office.
Reading your description of the place you live in just reminds me how incredible different people live their lives. Such different lifestyles. I can’t even comprehend living in such a remote place. It’s no wonder that people are divided in almost every way.
To give some comparison, here are my distances. Important to note that I intentionally moved somewhere in my town with walkability in mind.
To the nearest convenience store: 280m
To the nearest chain supermarket: 1.7km
To the bus stop: 260m
To the nearest park: 240m
To the nearest big supermarket: 2.4km
To the nearest library: 1.2km
To the nearest train station: 85kmAccess to a bus stop doesn’t really matter either as it usually is faster to walk than to wait for the bus to arrive, unless it is long distance in which I would just drive.
Distances seem about the same in my small US town.
No train.
Little further to Big Ben, i think.Here are my walking distances:
- To the nearest convenience store: 1700m
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 1700m
- To the bus stop: 640m
- To the nearest park: 800m
- To the nearest big supermarket: 1.7km
- To the nearest library: 3.1km
- To the nearest train station: 35.4km
Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 7514km
Kept all the units identical to yours for ease of comparison
An interesting data point in this discussion is to look at the list of countries in order of population density and see just how far down the list the US is.
We have a lot of people, some big cities, some major institutions, and a huge economy, but we also have a LOT of space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density
Library: 5 or so miles
Convenience store: 1mi
Supermarket: .75mi
Bus stop: .25mi*
Train station: 20-30mi
Park: 2mi
*This stop may be commuter times only … the stop exists but I never see the buses. Next closest is at supermarket.
I’ve been more in-city and the only thing nearby by a gas station. Everything else was 1mi+… Nearest supermarket being 6-7mi.