In my area we have this all over the place, usually small refrigerators plugged in with extension cords and full of eggs, or corn and tomatoes or fruit.
I also have this all over my area. They look pretty much the same as these pictures and sell local produce, honey, fresh cut flowers, etc. I bet they are common in most rural/farming areas around the US.
It is really cool, nothing can take away from that fact. This is something that having a low population and very little ethnic diversity plays a huge role in though. Community trust and behaviour like this is more common than most believe but is rarely seen in more diverse, larger population, communities. People are still people so I'm sure there are some that take advantage of this setup even where it works. Still it's nice to see that, regardless of why it happens, it still does.
I want to be upfront this has nothing to do with "race" and everything to do with cultural diversity. It's kind of an unfortunate issue. Societies with multiple cultures tend to have higher crime rates. Societies where the majority of people come from or subscribe to the same culture have less. People inherently place less value on things not of their culture. This can be overcome through a variety of means but it is something that has to be overcome.
The "little ethnic diversity" come into play because there is just that. Scandinavian countries have very little ethnic diversity compared to other European countries. This is especially prevalent outside of the larger cities.
Like I said. community trust and behaviour like this is more common than most believe. You can even see it portrayed in tv shows and movies. That "small town feel" is essentially what we're talking about. Low population size combined with similar if not identical cultural values lead that increased trust and behaviour. This ^ just makes for an easy example because of how homogeneous the Scandinavian countries are.
I'm Scandinavian and I doubt the lack of ethnic diversity is the reason we have less crime. We have crime and always did but just like everywhere else it's the people in poverty committing those crimes. Instead, the reason is not as bad as it could be is that we have socialized healthcare so no one needs to die or become poor just from sickness, education is freely available so you can get your master in whatever you like without drowning in debt. It's not lack of ethnic diversity, is taking care of people and not exploiting them.
We do of course have some ethnic diversity and of course we blame that. When I grew up it was those drunken Finns and upp north those heathen samish, a hundred years ago it was those people from across the country and it's the same with immigrants today.
What Scandinavia did differently after WWII was to create a welfare state where people didn't have to be poor, sick, uneducated and homeless. It's that lack of desperation and not the lack of diversity that lead to lower crime rates and it's the removal of that system that's leading to higher crime rates now. When I grew up in the eighties we simply didn't have homelessness or puberty despite having lots of immigration. We still blamed the immigrants and their difference from us, they were mostly Italians finns back then.
The "little ethnic diversity" come into play because there is just that. Scandinavian countries have very little ethnic diversity compared to other European countries. This is especially prevalent outside of the larger cities.