New York’s incoming mayor proposes government-run grocery stores to address food insecurity affecting 1.4 million residents in expensive city.
NEW YORK: Incoming socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani is proposing an experimental plan for city-run supermarkets to address New York’s affordability crisis.
The 34-year-old Democratic Socialist won office partly on his promise to open affordable, government-operated grocery stores focusing “on keeping prices low, not making a profit.”
Approximately 1.4 million New York City residents are food insecure, meaning they cannot regularly access affordable, healthy food.
One in three city residents currently relies on food banks for sustenance.
Mamdani’s plan involves opening five pilot stores on unused city land, with stores exempt from rent and taxes to pass savings directly to shoppers.
Centralized warehousing and distribution would further reduce overhead costs in the ambitious proposal.
The plan has drawn criticism from opponents including President Donald Trump, who has led right-wingers in branding the incoming mayor a “communist.”
Private supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, a Trump ally, is campaigning against the city grocery plan, questioning “how do you compete against that?”
Urban food policy expert Nevin Cohen noted that Mamdani’s plan remains “pretty vague” on basic details like specific locations or store types.
New York already operates the FRESH program, which uses tax and planning incentives to attract private supermarkets to underserved neighborhoods.
Laura Smith of NYC’s Department of City Planning said FRESH helps “encourage more fresh food supermarkets across the city in areas where residents have a harder time reaching full line grocery stores.”
Mamdani has expressed skepticism about FRESH, arguing on his website that instead of “spending millions of dollars to subsidize private grocery store operators we should redirect public money to a real ‘public option.'”
The food crisis is particularly severe in the Bronx, where over 40% of residents eat neither fruits nor vegetables in an average week.
Some 1.8 million New Yorkers already depend on federal food subsidies, though the program faced temporary freezing during recent congressional spending disputes.
Even Trump acknowledged during a meeting with Mamdani that “getting housing built and food and prices” should be priorities, stating “The new word is affordability. Another word is just groceries.”
Cohen emphasized that despite local innovations, solving food insecurity “actually requires national-level policy” beyond what any single city can accomplish. – AFP
