I really don't like supporting Costco as it's the antithesis to good urban design. It's not healthy for people to be living so separated from shops that stores like costco end up with 1000 car parking lots. Grocery stores should be on every other corner or so of every neighborhood within walking distance. Prices would be kept low due to healthy small business competition. Costco is mearly a symptom of the sickness that is Euclidean zoning.
Costco isn't a grocery store, it's a retail bulk warehouse. Shopping daily at it makes little sense, nor does shopping daily at a small store for items at a higher price for most incomes. Good urban design would place it further away as it's a destination shopping trip intended less frequently. Public transportation would have more storage space for bags and either a public or store delivery service would get larger items home.
You should be hoping that Costco stays in business and large every day grocery stores (Kroger, Target Grocery, etc.) don't last.
They make costcos with apartments on top now. The big issue I think is the quantities are prohibitively large. Cereal is sold in 1 foot square cubes. Granola bars in huge 30 count boxes. Oil by the gallons. You can fill up your modest apartment very vast shopping at costo if you aren't careful. You almost need a basement or garage with storage racking to make the most of your membership.
There’s a Costco in downtown Vancouver, it’s great. I just use a cart to pull my groceries home rather than taking my car and parking (it is next to the hockey and football stadiums and shares underground parking). Sometimes I just walk in to grab the eight dollar rotisserie chicken.
Costco doesn’t prevent the things you mention, you should come to my area in NYC. Within 3 blocks I have 3 supermarkets and maybe 12 smaller markets and corner stores. Within a mile I probably have 20-30 supermarkets and one of them is Costco.
A lot of the owners of the smaller markets actually shop at Costco. And you don’t need a car to shop there, you can bike and there are people with vans outside who will take your bike and groceries back home. Costco also offers local delivery.
I wouldn’t say it diminishes from the urban design you mention, in many ways it facilitates it.
I live in Tokyo which arguably is one of the most transit friendly cities, and still bus to the nearby Costco to load up every month or two. Sometimes you just need a suitcase full of mozzarella sticks, no questions asked.
I'm in California, so that is true anyway. But at the same time, I'm in a suburb so "walking distance" is still talking a mile up the hill minimum. The woes of having so much space.
But on the other hand, every supermarket had 1000 car parking lots to use that space with. Even smaller stores will have ~100. One thing I definitely don't miss compared to downtown city planning that nickle and dimed me everytime I wanted to stop.
I think about this a lot as an avid lover of Costco.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to travel by PEV/Bike to one but there's another Costco near me which is assailed on all sides by freeways and would be impossible to reach by anything other than car.
