My wife just got back from running a couple of errands on her bike - dry cleaner, mailing a letter, and commented on how much she appreciates “living locally.” Yesterday I biked to the library. Wonder how many of you live where you are able to walk/bike to run errands? Or whether you have any preference for supporting local businesses.
I live in a suburb of Chicago, which has a well-established downtown with movie theater, shopping, restaurants… The downtown is maybe 2 miles from me. The library is about 1.75 miles. I’ll either bike or drive there, depending on weather, time of day, mood, etc.
I have a major grocery store and small strip mall less than 1/2 mile from me, which doesn’t require crossing any busy streets. So we often walk/bike there, except for major grocery trips. Our bank is right across the street from there.
My kids are out of school, but the grade/middle schools are within blocks. HS is maybe 1.5 miles.
As far as shopping locally, we have a strong preference for supporting our local businesses when practical - even if it costs slightly more and requires a personal visit.
The closest ‘town’ (about 400 people) is 4 miles away on a two lane highway that I consider way two dangerous for bikes. It’s also one hell of a climb back up to our house. We live on the continental divide. There’s one bar/restaurant, and a small local owned convenience store.
In the other direction, about 15 miles is a town where we get our groceries, and my Wife works. About 10 miles past that is where I work.
With that said, I feel like I live locally. It’s a tourist economy, so anyone that’s lived here for more than a few years will consider themselves a ‘local’. I’ve been here for 25 years, and love it (winters can get kinda long though).
I walk on my property, up and down the street when I had a dog. That’s a lot for my knees now, in the past I would walk miles if I had no way to travel by motor vehicle as divine powers had intended.
I was actually thinking about you when I wrote the OP! Didn’t expect you to be the first frigging respondent, tho! It’s a good bet the majority of subsequent posts will be in between us, barring some metro dweller.
We live 2.4 miles from our town centre so bike-able but not really walk-able unless we’re making a day of it (which we sometimes do on market day).
I do like to support local businesses where I can and where it’s convenient for me. A good example of that is fruit and veg. The big box supermarket is closer than the town centre where the fruit and veg stall is, and the supermarket offers free parking. So I buy my fruit and veg there.
We’ve got local shops about a 20 minute walk away, and a mailbox just minutes down the road.
Yeah - where we live, a lot of it is habit. Just need to think to put on some comfortable shoes instead of just picking up the car keys. Main thing about walk/bike is, you generally need to factor in a little extra time. And we bundle tasks, to save trips.
I often walk to work, exactly 1 mile from my apartment. The nearest shopping complex, with restaurants and a grocery store, is more like 1 1/2 miles, and I do not walk there often because the weather is rarely cool enough in Florida to walk 1 1/2 miles, carrying things back in the bargain sometimes. I do, however, drive there for my groceries in preference to the other shopping complexes that are more like 4 and 5 miles away. It was great when the plaza had a K-Mart as well since if I didn’t need something that K-Mart probably wouldn’t have then I could get all my shopping done 1 1/2 miles from my apartment.
Although they did recently expand and move the nearest convenience store a few blocks closer so it is around 1/2 mile from me, so I do occasionally walk there.
Ha. I like these kinds of threads. I’ve lived country, almost inner city, suburban, and now rural mountain.
The city would be more fun if I was younger perhaps. But now I really enjoy my peace and quiet. It’s true that my wife and I don’t just dash off to the store or restaurant. When home after work, we very rarely go out again. It takes a little bit of planning - go by the store on the way home from work for instance. Or we often make big batches of food on the weekend to eat during the week.
Similar to you except for the biking. I’m in a Los Angeles county suburb, a couple of miles from downtown, stores, shops, restaurants nearby; movie theatre and other establishments behind my house; bank a bit farther; no kids but schools are plentiful. I do love to buy local as much as possible.
Bicycling to work…Nope. It’s six miles away, big college campus, I would have to pedal up a steep hill for a while before being able to go down again, don’t know how I would carry all my teaching stuff on a bike, I don’t own a bike, there are only two access roads for the campus; car drivers around here are getting worse with all the construction delays, detours, single-lane squeezes; and I don’t want to be a sweaty gross mess by the time I get to work (teaching classes).
My work is about 4 miles, but i don’t bike due to the roads, and to avoid wear/tear on my work clothes. Thought hard about it before deciding it made more sense to draive and when home, change and bike if I wished to.
So enipla - you live ON the continental divide? Step outside and depending on which way you are pointing, your piss flows down to the Atlantic or the Pacific?
Don’t think you are all special - I live near a mid-continental divide. The Chicago Portage and majestic Mud Lake being the main reason Chicago exists!
We regularly walk or ride to the supermarket, the wine shop, local restaurants, dentist, doctors, the gym, brewpub, ice cream shop, library, nail salon, book store, and a handful of other places. Riding to work is a bit of an effort (18 miles each way) but I can do once a week if I plan my day right. My wife can’t ride to work easily.
If you add public transportation (bus and subway) we can get to a lot more places.
I live a mile and a half outside a very small town and often ride my bike or walk uptown. I buy almost all my groceries from the locally owned grocery store because they carry produce, meats, and baked goods from local places.
I can’t even make it up my driveway without considerable effort
We’re about six miles from most things (including my office), in various directions. So, we seldom (never) walk to stores, restaurants, etc. The good part is that almost everything is within the electric range of my Volt. I liked city living (no car in NYC for three years) but everything is a trade off. Right now, I’m pretty happy with no neighbors and peace and quiet.
Before we bought this home 3 yrs ago, we seriously considered moving somewhere (also in the greater chicago area) where I don’t think there was a single store w/in 2 miles. I can see the merits to both choices.
I lived in the country for 20 years, where it was 1/4 mile to my mailbox* and four miles to a small town and the nearest grocery store. Forty-five miles to where I live now.
Now that I live in an inner city neighborhood (this was the outer 'burbs in the 1930s), I’m fortunate enough that I rarely have to go outside a 20-block radius. From filling up the car every third day, I’m at a point where I can nurse a tank of gas for almost two weeks.
My veterinarian, college (where I’m in the choir), Pilates instructor, synagogue, favorite supermarket, several good restaurants, are all a 5-mintue drive away. I have a good bike, but not inclined to bike to these places-- groceries, dog, night time, 90-degree heat, yaddayaddayadda.
*My mail now comes through an old-timey slot in the wall of my 1936 house and falls directly into a basket in my living room. Hehe.
Although we live in the country and so drive most places, earlier this spring we rode on horseback to a farm market nearby. We rode through the woods, crossed a dirt road, then rode through an apple orchard, ending up at the market.
They don’t have a hitching post, so I held the reins of my gf’s horse while she ran in and got an apple for each horse and some nectarines for us.
I live 2.5 miles from work, so I do my commute on foot. On the way home in the afternoons, if I’m not too tired, I can do small errands like picking up small items from the grocery store, which only involves a tiny depature from my normal route. And if it’s not too hot, on the weekends I’ll walk with my granny cart to do my weekly shopping. But my residential neighborhood is not close enough to “everything” such that I can do “everything” by foot comfortably. I could afford this luxury as a renter. But I had to give it up once I became a homeowner. Occasionally I will walk to the movie theater or to the closest shopping mall, but those are definitely not things I do every weekend anymore.
Didn’t expect you to be the first frigging respondent, tho! It’s a good bet the majority of subsequent posts will be in between us, barring some metro dweller.
