Anecdotes are anecdotes. The fact is everyone loves their own preferences, because that's what preferences are.
When I lived in the suburbs it took me 28 minutes to drive to the grocery store. When I lived in a city it was a 4 minute bike ride to two different grocery stores.
> When I lived in the suburbs it took me 28 minutes to drive to the grocery store
Wow. That sounds more rural to me. I've lived in 5 or 6 different suburbs (of three different cities, 2 "major" ones) and never been more than 10 minutes from a grocery store; even when I had corn fields in my back yard and drove by cows and apple orchards on the way to the store.
Admittedly, it's possible I'm "dense suburbs" and you're "sparse suburbs"; there's a range. It's just.. 30 minutes is a REALLY long trip for a grocery store.
I think there's a pretty wide gulf between true "rural" areas and the most dense of the suburbs.
A 30-minute drive to a grocery store in a suburb doesn't surprise me all that much. In the 'burb I lived in during my teens, 15 minutes to the grocery store was essentially the best you could hope for. Add some traffic (pretty common most of the time) and that could easily creep up to 20 or 25 minutes.
(And yeah, I live in a city now, and I can walk to a very well appointed smaller grocery in about 3 minutes.)
When I lived in the suburbs it took me 28 minutes to drive to the grocery store. When I lived in a city it was a 4 minute bike ride to two different grocery stores.