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

  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    Does America not have places like British retail parks?

    Of course it does! Well, sort of: American strip malls are like British retail parks, but BIGGER. (At least, judging by the pictures of the latter I just looked up.)

    In the case of the grandparent commenter’s aerial photo, it’s sort of like Adam’s aura in Good Omens: aside from various kinds of relatively high-density residential in the corners (e.g. assisted living top right and what appear to be townhouses bottom left), pretty much that entire area is retail! There are at least four strip malls on four different blocks – the one with the Chik-Fil-A, the one with the TJ Maxx, the one with the Wal-Mart, and the one with the Aldi – and each of the four is probably bigger than a typical British “retail park” by itself.

    Suburban America is literally comprised of two things:

    1. Disconnected cul-de-sac subdivisions of single-family houses
    2. Stroads lined by endless back-to-back strip malls

    Maybe that’s what a mall is.

    Generally speaking, America has a few different kinds of “malls:”

    1. Traditional commercial development – the sorts of “main street” shops you find in old small towns, if they haven’t been killed by Wal-Mart and torn down. (Not generally called a “mall,” but included in the list for completeness – it’s important to remember what we’ve lost.)

    2. “Strip malls” a.k.a. shopping centers – like I said, “retail parks” but bigger. Also the most common type of American retail.

    3. “Malls” – indoor shopping centers with large department stores at the ends, connected by hallways with smaller stores along them and surrounded by parking lots.

    4. “Outdoor malls” a.k.a. “lifestyle centers” – kinda like a cross between a mall and a Disney-esque fake downtown, with groups of shops in separate freestanding buildings connected by outdoor pedestrian paths either similar in layout to an indoor mall, or resembling a city street grid. Typically built pretty far out into the suburbs and surrounded by parking lots. On the bright side, as the newest sort of American retail development, sometimes they’re mixed-use.