Suburban Touches

I’m not a pure urbanist and do admit there are times where car-dependent living is better.  This is blasphemy in internet urbanist information bubbles, but it is time to be candid.    

The best example I can think of is Costco. Like many in Midtown Costco is our main grocery store as there aren’t many other options.  

Driving to the grocery store in a giant parking lot is better than walking or biking. If you’re in an Urban Grocery you have two options, one you drive and park in a structured parking garage or two you walk/bike.  Getting into an elevator with a shopping cart, maneuvering through parking garage, loading the shopping cart, then returning it is even bigger of a pain than the regular flat parking lot.  Walking/biking to the store works only if you are buying limited amounts of groceries. The portable carts and wagons are fine if you are single, but with a kid they are nowhere near as easy as a car.      

We have a Costco one block from us.  I rarely walk up there, because it is so much easier to use a car. It sucks and makes your life much harder to be a puritan on this issue.

We need to get off our high horses here and there and admit that sometimes the convenience of cars and suburban style shopping centers come in handy, and the grocery store is one of those places.   

Not all urban areas have the luxury of being able to fit a suburban style shopping center into the middle of their City.  We do, and paid a great price already for it.

As we bear the scars of being cut up by cars already, we should not give up the benefits in the name of Urbanism.  There are ways to build more density around the Midtown Costco and Home Depot, while preserving the suburban style grocery and hardware store access.

We could very easily place a few 10-12 story buildings all around the edges and preserve the easy parking access in the middle areas. But we should let suburban style assets on the interior remain as suburban style development assets.      

Let’s take the good where it exists.  We sacrificed too much to get it, so we should at least reap the benefits. Unfortunately, we  won’t ever get back the small neighborhood groceries, so let’s not make going to the grocery store any more of a hassle than it needs to be.