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> I live in a small european town and all the followings are found less than 3 minutes away from my home

walking, cycling, or driving? For where i live, in the USA, all three net me no shops. I have to travel 3.5km round trip to get candy and a cold drink at a gas station, ~19km to get fresh vegetables and fruit at all, and sixty-four kilometers to get to a "real" grocer. those are all round trip distances (had to edit 11 to 19 because i just multiplied by three instead of 6, and corrected the distance, too; oops!)

I think we have a vastly different definition of "small town"!

Now, i grew up in Whittier, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles, and a city so big it's the size of a parish/county most other places. Nominally 80,000-150,000 people in the city/metro limits. all of those things you mentioned were within 10 minutes of my house, including a "German butcher" and a non-German butcher, salons, barbers, etc. there was a pretty big mall within 10 minutes, too.

Whittier's population was "quaint" when i lived there, as it's 100% US suburb, with a long way to go to get to any freeway/interstate.