In the environs of Phoenix, Arizona, on a 17-acre site that once contained a car body shop and some largely derelict buildings, an unusual experiment has emerged that invites Americans to live in a way that is rare outside of fleeting experiences of college, Disneyland or trips to Europe: a walkable, human-scale community devoid of cars.
Let me share a somewhat related anecdote:
I live in Portland. Bought a house two years ago (yay hyper-specialized job privileges, etc!) and chose a fixer-upper in a good neighborhood, as it was one of the only things in my budget that wasn’t way out in suburban hell. Many of my criteria for buying were just “make sure this isn’t a rotting, radioactive dump” but I did want to make sure I could get an e-bike and ride to the store eventually.
Well. The new place was actually so close to a little local grocery chain that I just had to walk two blocks to it! I was so stoked.
Then, we “managed” the way through the first year by really pinching pennies while we took care of all the critical house fixes, so we didn’t go there a lot. In reality we saved very little by doing this and wasted a ton of driving time and cost, but I did wake up and start waking to the little store more as things “stabilized.”
And then it fucking closed. The little store wasn’t bringing in enough dough to pay their criminally high rent. And so, we were stuck driving further to save a very much imaginary penny on each item we bought anyway. And you know what? I was fucking wrong. I should have been going to the little local store from day one, not to fucking winco and freddys.
I can still ride my bike to the store but it’s so much further that we can’t “just walk.” It’s either a 10m e-bike ride with a cargo basket strapped on, or a stupid 3 min car ride that sometimes takes 10mins due to traffic anyway. What a waste when we had something so much better and more walkable.
Still, can’t complain. If I had moved to suburbia biking to the store would be a stupid and suicidal joke 🤷🏻♀️