>For me, that type of close-knit community and simple living is merely fantasy, absolutely unattainable in real life.

The US had that too until about WW2. There were family-owned shops having history lasting since long before the Revolution.

There's absolutely places like that in the US. I have multiple of those establishments, non-chain, minutes away. No newspaper store IDK about that, there's also McDonalds, CVS, Subway, but the independent restaurants and business outnumber chains easily. It's just not in a major metropolitan area.