One of the reasons why “new small-scale retail, service, and office uses” are now permitted in low-rise neighborhoods of Toronto — and why many are on to talking about these uses in our laneways — is because it’s a way to serve the “needs of residents” and “reduce local automobile trips”. But what are these needs exactly? And if you had to choose only one, what would it be?

Let me provide some further background.

According to this mapping, 94% of Parisians live within a 5-minute walk of a bakery. And according to this mapping, 94% of people in Mexico City live within a 5-minute walk of a taqueria. So in other words, these two cities seem to have the kind of “small-scale retail, service, and office uses” that satisfy at least some of the needs of their residents.

People in Paris need bread. And people in Mexico City need tacos. But what do people in Toronto need? I’m not sure we have a perfectly parallel thing. But according to Instacart, the top-selling grocery item last year across both the US and Canada was — bananas. One and four carts typically contain them, and apparently this number has remained fairly consistent.

So maybe this should be our small-scale retail and walkability test metric: What % of the population lives within a 5-minute walk of fresh bananas? (I’m open to other food suggestions here.)