Read my comment again. The point isn’t just the size of the country - it’s the shitty car-centric design philosophy that goes alongside the size of the country.

From a lack of urban density to a lack of basic public transit options to the fact that local businesses have been destroyed in favor of large shopping centers/companies to zoning regulations favoring separating uses into different locations (like moving groceries and restaurants outside of residential areas and into commercial centers), it all combines to make a singularity of a shitty situation.

Hell, even our city cores are basically desolate and dying because they’re all offices and strangled from any other kind of traffic by highway infrastructure that cuts the city’s central districts off from where people actually live, so the only time businesses see customers is basically from commuters on their way in or out of work and buying lunch.

So it’s not “American exceptionalism” that says that these cars wouldn’t work here because the country is so big, it’s that the shitty urban planning with its focus on cars and low population density has made it incredibly difficult to live without a big car. In most other countries, people often live within 5 minutes of a grocery store because they’re generally inside a residential area. In the US, grocery stores are so out of the way that most people go shopping for groceries in a trip specifically for that purpose once every week or two. It’s just generally impractical to do otherwise unless your commute happens to pass by a grocery store. The closest place to buy groceries for me is 10-15 minutes down the highway, the next closest is 20-30 in the opposite direction, and my only other option is a sandwich shop/deli.