They won't let you live that Bob's Burgers life!

Just move to europe you can. Where i live theres a pizza place under and the guy running it is literally one of my neighbours(apartments) and literally the next house on the street is on top of a bakery/cafe, all owned by a family.

Soviet era commie blocks with stores and doctor's offices in first floor go brrr

In my last year at uni some of my mates lived over a curry house. It was brilliant as when I went round we’d inevitably put some videos on and order food from downstairs.

I mean that person was wrong, there are absolutely places where mixed use setups like that are a thing. It's rarer but it exists. Zoning laws suck and aren't a good reason, but it's also not a good reason because there are places that don't have this issue. Also if it was like that when it was built and has been used like that since forever they allow it by grandfathering it in, not a forever solution but it does happen.

One of the things I absolutely loved in China was the almost systematic X over 1 buildings everywhere. It created so much life in the residential areas! A lot of residential areas would have some sort of pedestrian central hub, and then on the outer layer, business at ground level with convenience shops, fruit shop, noddle shop, etc. Coming back to France and its stupid zoning system is just so painful. Seeing all those lifeless suburbs, those lifeless housing estates, and everything concentrated in some shitty commercial areas separate from it all. Ugh.

There are lots of places with apartments on the 2nd floor and businesses on the 1st floor?

Zoning sounds terrible until your next door neighbor starts running an auto repair shop out of his garage.

"Mixed use" is also a thing. I know of plenty of examples here in the US, I have lived in one of them. New construction consisting of living space above retail is actually kinda trendy right now.

Also if you live above a greasy diner expect cockroaches

Zoning is one of the biggest issues facing major urban areas. Cutting down on it will be integral to facing the cost of living crisis.

I want every big box store and strip mall in America to be obligated to build enough housing on top and above as it would take to staff the store and their families at a minimum.

Bar I frequented in my 20s had apartments above it. Thought it would be so cool to live there

There's a little town near me where they allow that zoning. My favorite restaurant has an apartment above it and it is my goal in life to live there and eat there every day, maybe every meal.

ITT: people who think mixed-use housing is way more common than it actually is.

Come to England! This is normal here!

I've always wanted to live above a restaurant that had a dumbbell waiter into my apartment and I could just order anything on the menu brought up that way

Is this actually illegal in the US? If so, where is it legal? There's British comedy series called Black Books where the protagonist ran a bookstore on the first floor and lived on the second floor. My wife and I have always thought about opening a coffeeshop/bookstore hybrid and live right above it, partially inspired by this.

Yeah it's coming back with 4 over 1s and 5 over 1s, assuming we do go into world war 3.

There's also a variant where They take a plot of land, like 500-1500 acres. Put up Luxury condos, a gaggle of townhomes and a decent number of large single family homes then shove in a stripmall, gas station and grocery store in with it. The residents can walk to the grocery and a couple of food places, maybe a gym, shipping store, electronics repair store.

A lot of the new buildings in my city have stores and restaurants on the griund floor with apartments above. Also there are older places with apartments above a business in my city. It seems like its just post WW2 construction wanted to get away from it. We seem to be moving back towards that.

Ok, now it's driving me nuts figuring this out. I live in Oklahoma and yeah, minus some small exceptions, our commercial and res are strictly zoned, and maybe this applies to other places where the strip mall and Plaza are king, and there's more room in general? Our 'town squares' are nothing but beauracratic stuff, bars, and historical buildings.

Why drive to the shops when they're just downstairs?