I find I'd much rather drive to the mountains, or a lake, or at least a nice big park, and recreate there. Walking to a store in Amsterdam or Munich or Vancouver or Moscow was neither much fun nor a lot of exercise.
I am not talking about spending the leisure time but the amount of movement we need every day just to keep our bodies healthy. Sitting all the time is detrimental to us.
As a European who owns both a car and a bike, regularly driving somewhere just to do a bit of walking there feels like a complete waste of resources to me. I use my car for work related travel, at distances over 5 miles or to move heavy stuff. For anything else the default choice (which includes grocery shopping) is walking or biking. Amsterdam has great bike paths, I’d probably cycle even more there.
> I find I'd much rather drive to the mountains, or a lake, or at least a nice big park, and recreate there.
This is not a sustainable solution to population level health needs, even if maybe in your particular situation you do actually get enough vacation days and free time on weekends to be able to do this (I also doubt this).
Well, a more sustainable solution is everyone exercising at home whenever they want in the way they want, or going for a run around the block. Going to the store by car + going for a run, is still faster and more convenient than walking to the store (per unit of exercise - e.g. driving to the store 10 times and running 2 miles vs walking 0.2 miles to the store).
A gym is a great example of how we tend to support parts of life communally when we can live more densely.
For me the competing requirements are space for gym equipment and space for a workshop. I could have space for both if I lived further out, but then all other aspects of life would get worse. I'd have to drive constantly, to work, to social outings, to fun weekend stuff, it'd be a drag.
As you are pointing out though, we all have our tradeoffs we make. My only counterpoint would be that most cities are doing a terrible job of offering options to people who do want the more dense, "less car" communities.
I'm not sure you noticed you actually said you'd rather have enjoyable but infrequent events in one place than basic mundane and recurring chores.
A honest, objective comparison would be between going to a store in, say, LA or Amsterdam, and going to a lake or nice big park in LA or Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam, you can go to stores on foot without any issue. Not in LA.
In LA you need to drive for hours to go to any of the nice spots you listed. In Amsterdam you can walk to a nice park or a nice lake, and for the same amount of time you need to drive in LA to reach any decent spot, in Amsterdam you can actually reach at least two different countries, and by train you can reach spots like Paris.
Going to the store - I'd prefer to drive in LA on an average day of the year.
For the mid-range activities we have to compare like with like. For some low-mid range activity (like a local park) indeed, walking in Amsterdam would be more convenient. Something more remote/infrequent (e.g. a specialized gym like a climbing gym or a large pool), I'd prefer to drive rather than take transit.
As for the surrounding area it doesn't really depend on the city itself, LA is surrounded by desert and mountains, Amsterdam is in one of the most historically agriculturally productive (and so, densely populated for centuries) and flat areas in Europe. If LA was built like Amsterdam, it'd still take forever to get anywhere interesting outside of the city.
Personally I don't even like driving :) To me it's a minor annoyance, like washing the dishes. But it's just SO much more convenient, so it's worth it.
