And this may sound silly, but shopping that way, you could avoid certain shops. Those of us who don’t eat red meat could just avoid the butcher shop and the smell, and the same with the bakery.

That model is better for communities, since those businesses are almost always owned by local merchants. It keeps more dollars in the community, and because in a small shop you get to know the merchant, the merchant is more accountable for the quality of the stuff he sells. And it’s more fun shopping this way - the shops have individual character. The general store smells of coffee and spices; the fish market displays fish on glittering beds of ice; the butcher cuts your meat to order and might have a few bones for your dog cheap (or free); and the greengrocer’s has beautiful displays of produce.

Sometimes these areas are composed of several different little storefronts, as in Boston’s North End, and sometimes they are stalls run by individual merchants but housed in the same large building, like Baltimore’s Lexington Market or St. Louis’s Soulard Market. They are always much livelier than a typical suburban supermarket, which, with its glaring fluorescent lights and smell of floor wax, turns shopping into a chore instead of a pleasure.