Well you don't have to live near a metropolis to have short/no drives. I live in a town of 10k, on a 1 acre lot, about 1/2 mile to over a dozen restaurants, a small grocery store, a handful of convenience stores, a couple of pharmacies, the library, and the post office. And it's only about 4-6 miles to several large grocery stores and other big box stores.
Small towns can be very pedestrian/bike friendly. They just need to actually encourage scattered commercial development rather than shun it for fear of bringing down property values.
The town I live in isn't governed by forward-looking geniuses or anything, it just got lucky. It had a much higher population about 100-150 years ago, before the advent of cars, so main street was developed fairly densely so all the mill workers could get all their stuff done on foot. Even the people on the edge of town only have about a 3 1/2 mile trip to main street with everything you really need.