• SorryQuick@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

    Depends how you see it. I live in the countryside and would hate living in the city. Yet one does not both live in the countryside AND eat without a car when the closest grocery store is 30km away. We used to have a local grocery store that hardly had anything and which unsurprisingly went out if business.

    In my case, driving IS freedom. It’s the freedom to go where I want when I want without having to rely on anyone else.

    Do I miss having the grocery store across the street when I lived in the city? For sure, but I sure am glad I’m back in the countryside now.

    • Another Catgirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 hours ago

      I’m just looking at this full size grocery store surrounded by medium-small farms. Two of them are growing canola, its flowers are beautiful yellow. There’s farmshacks and traditional countryside things like windmills, barely further from the grocery store than that store’s parking lot.

      • SorryQuick@lemmy.ca
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        41 minutes ago

        I can’t imagine this being possible (the full sized part anyway). The less customers you have, the less options you can offer, it’s simple economics.

        Perhaps what doesn’t help my case is that most of the town works for that one company where everyone has one or two of their meals at their cafeteria. Still, of the neighboring towns, none has a grocery store bigger than a corner store. The only town that does have one has almost 5000 people….

        The truth is, when we did have a grocery store, everyone went to the city once a week anyway because everything is there (or they work there). So while they’re at it, they also shopped at the bigger grocery stores, leading to a decline in customers at the local one.