How did people shop for groceries when your neighborhood was originally built? Surely it was not designed to be so inconvenient: what has changed in the meantime?

One popular way of talking about building for people is the concept of a "fifteen-minute city": neighborhoods where you can get to your daily needs within that much time via walking or biking. This does not require super-towers or any unusual level of density. My neighborhood - about ten years older than yours - comes close to the ideal, and while it has its share of apartment buildings, none are taller than half a dozen stories, and there are just as many people living in townhouses or single-family homes as there are in the apartments.

We don't have a metro station, but we do have an express bus line which will get you to a metro station in fifteen minutes, and that bus comes every five minutes. Not so bad.

No, there's not a shop on every corner - but there are two grocery stores within five minutes' walk, and two more within ten. No need to carry groceries on the bus at all.