When I was in Amsterdam a few years ago, I needed a band-aid and some batteries. In New York, that retail task would require a walk of no more than a few blocks to the nearest drugstore, supermarket, or deli. For the batteries, a newsstand even. (It'd be longer in parts of Brooklyn, but I was in the heart of Amsterdam, so Manhattan would be a more valid comparison.) In A'dam, I had to walk about 10 minutes to a pharmacy to get the band-aids, and then another 10 minutes to a record store to get the batteries. The supermarket near our hotel had neither, of course. We may not have a decent welfare state here, but we sure do have cheap and plentiful consumer goods!