Honestly, I think it's more the fault of city planners. There are almost no places to eat within 10 minute walk of where I live, and I live downtown. If more apartment buildings had commercial first floors that would go a long way.
To be fair, ground floor retail sounds great to residents but doesn't seem to be economically justified, judging by the amount of it that ends up vacant. I think it's more financially complicated than you would guess.
May I ask what city you live in? I've lived in three boroughs in NYC, and I've never lived more than 5 minutes away from a local eatery. Hell, our first apartment was directly above one.
A lot of midwest cities aren't really "cities". In the NYC sense. Usually it's a tiny shitty downtown surrounded by suburban sprawl. The places to eat are off of stroads in and around strip malls. In my town a lot of downtown closes not long after the business crowds that work downtown dry up. The zoning doesn't allow enough residential zoning near businesses to have many walkable options.
We're pretty "lucky" in that our subdivision is only about a mile walk to the nearest store and we have sidewalks the entire way. So if I wanted to eat at Subway or Marcos Pizza or pick up a Papa Murphey's take and bake I've got those options! There is also a diner that cannot stay in business. It changes owners every other year or so. If you go a mile from me in the other direction, then the closest place to walk to get something to eat is two miles away (hint, it's the same place) and you no longer have sidewalks the entire way. Guess what happens at five miles away from my house in that other direction? Now you've got to walk six miles one way! My "city" has a population nearing 300,000 and you could find a copy and paste of this design all throughout the city. Miles and miles of suburbs connected via stroads and separated by strip malls.
