In most of Europe you can easily live all your life without seeing those, but they do exist.
My country, Finland, is probably the most hypermarket-based society in Europe, so maybe you'll want to steer clear of here if you don't like hypermarkets :D
Here's something scary for you from the capital of Finland, from what I would consider urban area:
All of the ex eastern bloc countries in Europe live in a somewhat similar way, but they don't have it as bad regarding this as Finland does.
Here's an example from Poland:
In Poland those don't exist half as close to city centres as in Finland, though, so it's easy to be safe from them!
Portugal, southern half of Italy, Greece, and actually probably all of Balkan countries have it very well in this regard! I love the tiny shops in those parts of Europe! :)
But they are much less prominent in Germany than in USA!
And typically Mediterranean people prefer buying their groceries in small corner shops that usually have some vegetables on shelves on the street in front of the shop.
This is a common view in Portugal and southern Italy. And to a reasonable extent in France as well. In Spain not so much, though!
