Mamdani’s Grocery Plan Tests the Boundaries of Public Ownership (1)

For decades, the American playbook for bringing groceries to underserved neighborhoods has been simple: offer tax breaks to supermarket chains and hope they sign up. But as food costs climb and public trust in private solutions falters, a supermarket model with government at the center is moving from fringe idea to policy experiment.

Nowhere is the potential impact greater than in New York City, where Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to test a city-run grocery store in each of the five boroughs at a projected cost of $60 million. But New York isn’t the only place where alternative models ...