this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Lefty Memes

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[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 140 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Many cities at one time had trolley service which did local point to point connection. Then they were forced out because there was more profit in growing car dependency.

[–] Sivecano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Capitalist government when public transport (a public service) is not making profits

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Seems more like politicians were ~~bribed~~ lobbied to cut funding by car makers than they were counting coins and said we'd get more (as a government) if everyone just drove from home.

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[–] Smorty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 129 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah right, let me just walk to the supermarket XD

is back in 25 minutes with bag of grocceries

:o

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 73 points 1 week ago (3 children)

"I don't want to carry bags all that way!"

Here. Take a backpack.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Shopping trolleys have grown in popularity in Sweden in recent years, sort of like a rolling suitcase but with more space, specifically made for grocery shopping.

Personally, I use a pannier basket on my bike though. Best way to shop for sure

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[–] Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

no im obese and entirely brainwashed that walking is detriemntal to my health or smth idfk

societal constraints hold back the minds of those who are lazy to change

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[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 101 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

1: I've taken the metro to get groceries loads of times

2: Trams

[–] Sivecano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 99 points 1 week ago (1 children)

why would I take a train when the store is 3 minutes walking diatance

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 53 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That's literally communism and also the cause of everything wrong with the economy, that's why!

[–] owl@infosec.pub 14 points 1 week ago

Driving is for free people, walking is for slaves! /s

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[–] Drusas@fedia.io 86 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The best is when the grocery stores are so close that you don't need a car or a train. Japan does it right. You can always walk to at least one grocery store.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

True enough for urban areas.

There's also a lot of more rural areas in Japan where the only thing in walking distance from a house is a bus stop, and it might be a bit of a long walk.

I'm sure there are more remote places, but I haven't been to those places.

[–] ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think the important part is that the Japan residents know it is possible once the town or city grows vs here in North America where people cannot fanthom the idea of not having a car (or in the US and Canada 1 car per person on the home).

I am privileged since I have been able to work from home recently, but it is so clear that you don’t need a car if non-work things were closer (better zoning and design roads for people instead of cars). Once you put 1k miles per year on your car instead of 10-20k and your quality of life is much higher due to no stress from having to commute it starts to radicalize you against into the dumb shit we do in the name of growth and profit (not violently but still makes you feel cheated out of a better life).

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[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 68 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Greg is gonna shit on the floor when he'll learn that happens everywhere in Europe.

[–] Zementid@feddit.nl 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

In socialist Europe, I walk to the groceries, comrade... I take 15min train ride from home to work in the city center... and I wait no longer than 5 minutes on train because that's its frequency.. but I have no car...

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[–] Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 64 points 1 week ago (4 children)

It's actually called zoning reform. Bring back neighborhood grocery stores you can walk to. Before I experienced it, I never thought about how convenient it is to walk less than 5 minutes to a grocery store almost every day and do little grocery trips instead of bit multi-bag struggles.

[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Bring back neighborhood grocery stores you can walk to.

This is actually probably more a federal antitrust/competition law thing than a local zoning thing. Otherwise it wouldn't have happened nationwide. I found this article to be pretty persuasive:

Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened. That something was a specific federal policy change in the 1980s. It was supposed to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and inflating the cost of food. Food deserts will not go away until that mistake is reversed.

. . .

Congress responded in 1936 by passing the Robinson-Patman Act. The law essentially bans price discrimination, making it illegal for suppliers to offer preferential deals and for retailers to demand them. It does, however, allow businesses to pass along legitimate savings. If it truly costs less to sell a product by the truckload rather than by the case, for example, then suppliers can adjust their prices accordingly—just so long as every retailer who buys by the truckload gets the same discount.

. . .

During the decades when Robinson-Patman was enforced—part of the broader mid-century regime of vigorous antitrust—the grocery sector was highly competitive, with a wide range of stores vying for shoppers and a roughly equal balance of chains and independents. In 1954, the eight largest supermarket chains captured 25 percent of grocery sales. That statistic was virtually identical in 1982, although the specific companies on top had changed. As they had for decades, Americans in the early 1980s did more than half their grocery shopping at independent stores, including both single-location businesses and small, locally owned chains. Local grocers thrived alongside large, publicly traded companies such as Kroger and Safeway.

With discriminatory pricing outlawed, competition shifted onto other, healthier fronts. National chains scrambled to keep up with independents’ innovations, which included the first modern self-service supermarkets, and later, automatic doors, shopping carts, and loyalty programs. Meanwhile, independents worked to match the chains’ efficiency by forming wholesale cooperatives, which allowed them to buy goods in bulk and operate distribution systems on par with those of Kroger and A&P. A 1965 federal study that tracked grocery prices across multiple cities for a year found that large independent grocers were less than 1 percent more expensive than the big chains. The Robinson-Patman Act, in short, appears to have worked as intended throughout the mid-20th century.

Then it was abandoned. In the 1980s, convinced that tough antitrust enforcement was holding back American business, the Reagan administration set about dismantling it. The Robinson-Patman Act remained on the books, but the new regime saw it as an economically illiterate handout to inefficient small businesses. And so the government simply stopped enforcing it.

That move tipped the retail market in favor of the largest chains, who could once again wield their leverage over suppliers, just as A&P had done in the 1930s. Walmart was the first to fully grasp the implications of the new legal terrain. . . . Kroger, Safeway, and other supermarket chains followed suit. . . . Then, in the 1990s, they embarked on a merger spree. In just two years, Safeway acquired Vons and Dominick’s, while Fred Meyer absorbed Ralphs, Smith’s, and Quality Food Centers, before being swallowed by Kroger. The suspension of the Robinson-Patman Act had created an imperative to scale up.

A massive die-off of independent retailers followed. Squeezed by the big chains, suppliers were forced to offset their losses by raising prices for smaller retailers, creating a “waterbed effect” that amplified the disparity. Price discrimination spread beyond groceries, hobbling bookstores, pharmacies, and many other local businesses. From 1982 to 2017, the market share of independent retailers shrank from 53 percent to 22 percent.

The whole thing is worth reading.

[–] Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

Genuinely high quality post.

And yet another Reagan roast.

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[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Trains also work to get other traffic off the road too. It solves congestion for everybody, not just you. That way when you do have to drive a car, there are fewer of them on the road.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 57 points 1 week ago (5 children)

If you have to take a train to the grocery, that's a failure in local planning and a business opportunity. That said, not every store has everything and I, too, have taken a train to the grocery store for fancier/rarer things.

In some parts of rural Japan, we also have a grocery truck carrying staples and things you requested the last time they came from the actual store. This is a huge lifeline to some rural elderly people, but I don't see why it couldn't be more broadly applied in other areas.

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[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 55 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Taking a train to the grocery store only seems absurd to people who have never experienced a really efficient rail system.

You get what you pay for.

[–] qbus@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I used to take the train to the grocery store. It was called the red line in Chicago

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[–] ghurab@lemmy.world 44 points 1 week ago (6 children)

If you are not disabled in anyway and still need to take a transport bigger than a bicycle to buy basic groceries, the design of the city you live in is fundamentally broken.

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[–] obinice@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago

Yes, it's called a tram. It's how I get to the shops, city centre, etc.

[–] Bwaz@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago

Light rail. All the time. Train isn't only Amtrak.

[–] LoamImprovement@beehaw.org 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I beg these people to imagine a world where you don't need to get in a vehicle to buy essentials.

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[–] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 1 week ago

This dude jokes but when I lived in Harlem I’d take the subway to Columbus circle Whole Foods as it was significantly easier than commuting to the east side on 125 to pathmark.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah there's this thing called LIGHT RAIL, but even heavy rail, the NYC subway and BART are actually both heavy rail transit systems that one could absolutely casually take to the grocery store.

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[–] 538739@lemmynsfw.com 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

as a Dutchy, this confuses me greatly

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Trains solve traffic issues

Elon brings shame to autists everywhere by not knowing about trains

Gregory does not have enough trains in his neighbourhood

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[–] fnrir@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (10 children)
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[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I do this with light rail. Takes 6 minutes with slow walking included. It's pleasant.

Especially in the winter. I live in Norway, so if I use a car I wait for the engine to warm up before driving. (It's better for the engine.) This and removal of ice and snow easily takes more than 6 minutes. I'm really glad I don't have a car.

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[–] parrhesia@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Ideally we could just fucking walk to a small grocery store instead of having to drive to one. Also would increase jobs with more foot traffic.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 21 points 1 week ago

Working from home is the only way to really beat traffic.

No congestion at all. Not even an overcrowded train.

[–] kaprap@leminal.space 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I get her point but trams!!!

I think she should see a city with trams and see how useful it is when implemented properly :)))

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[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 20 points 1 week ago (3 children)

WE ONCE HAD STREETCARS LOOK WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US

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[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (9 children)
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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

Woke agenda:

Legs, Gondolas, Buses, Trams

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

The fact people want to get in a car in order to get groceries is beyond me. I'm in Australia, where car brain is also very prevalent, but with many urban places good for walking and PT.

I live close to the shops, and go there multiple times a week because it's literally right there. Driving and parking? Nah, I'm good.

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