I don’t think it’s about being “places of financial transactions” so much as it’s about places of shared necessity. Everyone has to eat, so everyone goes to the grocery store.
Community centers are great and I’m not going to argue against having “non-commercial recreation”, but the thing about having local stores as social hubs is they might be the only universally shared place of a community. Not everyone is going to want (or be able!) to visit a library, but everyone does need food and other consumables/goods.
Community centers are great and I’m not going to argue against having “non-commercial recreation”, but the thing about having local stores as social hubs is they might be the only universally shared place of a community. Not everyone is going to want (or be able!) to visit a library, but everyone does need food and other consumables/goods.