> I would hazard that most in fact don't.

Considering that, almost by definition, urban environments house a magnitude more people than rural areas, I'd wager a guess that indeed most people do want walkable cities, or at least they would if they weren't brainwashed by car lobbyists to believe that covering an entire continent in asphalt just to park our metal boxes wasn't an idiotic use of space and resources.

> Personally, I don't want to go shopping ever other day at a boutique corner store.

I'm not really familiar with what a "boutique" corner store means here, but fair enough if you don't, though this sounds like more of a "I'm used to doing things my way" type of thing. I buy groceries 3 times a week on my way back home from wherever I might've been, it takes me no longer than 5-10 minutes, all I need is a single backpack, and it's a 2 minute cycle from the store to my house. And it's an actual house, with a garden and all the other fancy stuff people have in the suburbs. At the same time, I know people who have cargo bikes and do the once-every-2-weeks shopping sprees that you're talking about.

> So he commutes over 50 miles to work each day.

Some of my colleagues take a 1-2h train journey once a week, and they live in farmland as well. I understand the US is very large, but rural doesn't have to necessitate a lack of transport options either.