this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[โ€“] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Most places I have lived in the U.S. have plazas, giant parking lots, with stores that loop around 2 sides into a corner for the most part. They aren't designed to be walked to. Bicycling to them is often tough as well. The mom and pops shops are mostly dead, so groceries, appliances, movies, whatever it is you are looking for are in Walmart, Target, Bestbuy, and other failing stores like Macy's, Dillard's, JCPenney, etc. all resteraunts are either surrounded by a parking lot, or in a plaza. Fast food is everywhere, and neighborhoods are miles from stores. The jurisdictions don't allow commercial propertys near many neighborhoods. Slowly we are seeing more mix, but it's a last 10 year change that I have noticed.

One of the big reasons for the stupid size of parking lots around stores has to do with zoning laws as well. I don't remember the numbers and it's gotta vary by district, but it's tied to a certain percentage of the max occupancy of the building.

Because of the car-focused infrastructure that puts everything else last, we've created a self-defeating system that forces people to drive everywhere, thus justifying the massive parking lots that prevent people from using other modes of transport in the first place.