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To Americans: How far apart is everything in the US? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by dch82 to c/[email protected]

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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

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

One thing that deserves special note is the US, aside from being more spread out in general, has a lot more sprawling suburbs with downtown areas.....if you live near the downtown, then everything is walkable, but maybe 20% of a towns population in any given suburb will be that close, and thats a generous estimate.

As an American who has lived in the EU, walking / biking like you can do there just plain is not possible for MOST of the US. As other have mentioned, if you live in a major city, or in the center of a suburb, then it may not be so bad.

On a similar note, this sprawl is the same reason that public transport on the EUs level isnt viable in the US....there would need to be too many stops and too many routes to get decent coverage, and when you math it out, having cars is the most economical decision for most of the country.