I'm not even going to bother linking to the latest article objecting to publicly-owned groceries. Like all the previous ones it offers no solutions to the underlying problem except that maybe the free market will get food to all the people it has thus far failed to get food to.
The idea that the free market hasn't peaked for grocery stores is very disconnected from reality. Rich neighborhoods are more dense with groceries than ever, all of which continue to increase their markup higher and higher. Poor neighborhoods that can't afford the profit gouging lose groceries instead and have worsening conditions for existing stores. Grocery stores leave poor neighborhoods while relatively rich neighborhoods get Erewhon, making groceries even unfordable for the upper-middle class.
My neighborhood has 6 groceries, all within a 20 minute walking distance of each other, because the rising wealth around me supports insane prices as the groceries all race to price up the same shit. The free market has failed to price effectively because local monopolies and the easy collusion of just walking into the neighboring stores.
My block has 2 groceries. They're named different but you can easily find out how insane their markup for profit is on basic foodstuffs because they're both Key Foods! The prices are a fantasy of greed in comparison to a normal Key Foods. People who live on any form of rent assistance get screwed on food instead of rent for neighborhoods the city is supposed to make it possible for them to live in!
Maybe city-run groceries will fail. Even if they do, they'll have a major impact on the price of groceries because they'll force companies to compete on realistic prices! The amount New Yorkers pay in taxes will be returned to them in multiples because the time and money they'll save everywhere.
Even if none of the downstream effects come to be, people who don't have access to fresh food will get access to that food, which is unabashedly good. If the city is for everyone then everyone deserves its features, which include reasonably close and affordable groceries. Opposition, as we see, has no good ideas to solve this issue.
The free market has failed New Yorkers on the most vital issue of food. It and its defenders present no alternative solutions. Time to try something different. The stakes are people's ability to eat. Time to stop doing nothing in the hope the invisible hand will solve people starving.
If you don't have an alternative idea, and especially if you don't live in NYC, STFU.
—
— Via link