> I live in a small european town and all the followings are found less than 3 minutes away from my home

walking, cycling, or driving? For where i live, in the USA, all three net me no shops. I have to travel 3.5km round trip to get candy and a cold drink at a gas station, ~19km to get fresh vegetables and fruit at all, and sixty-four kilometers to get to a "real" grocer. those are all round trip distances (had to edit 11 to 19 because i just multiplied by three instead of 6, and corrected the distance, too; oops!)

I think we have a vastly different definition of "small town"!

Now, i grew up in Whittier, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles, and a city so big it's the size of a parish/county most other places. Nominally 80,000-150,000 people in the city/metro limits. all of those things you mentioned were within 10 minutes of my house, including a "German butcher" and a non-German butcher, salons, barbers, etc. there was a pretty big mall within 10 minutes, too.

Whittier's population was "quaint" when i lived there, as it's 100% US suburb, with a long way to go to get to any freeway/interstate.

I think that young USAmericans are deathly envious of a community like yours, myself included. I have nothing really novel to contribute here (in my view, North American urbanism, zoning regulation, the aforementioned globalism and, if you will allow me to briefly beat a dead horse, car-centric planning are to blame.)

I was playing Stardew Valley the other day and it hit me. For me, that type of close-knit community and simple living is merely fantasy, absolutely unattainable in real life.

To add to this, I live in the suburb of a large European city, and the same is true here, except owners change more often. It is also true in the city center.

What is the average salary in that town?

I also live in a small European town and there is a convenience store and a hairdresser. Oh and restaurants. That's it. Doesn't matter if you go to neighboring towns, they're the same. One of the neighboring towns has a supermarket, an Aldi.

I am also old enough to remember what it looked like in 1985.