Of all his radical ideas, Zohran Mamdani’s proposed government-owned supermarkets exemplify his socialist core.
He’s right about the city’s grocery problem: Too many New Yorkers lack affordable fresh food-shopping options in their neighborhoods.
But he doesn’t seem to know that public grocery stores have already been tried, and have failed, across the country — or that the private sector can solve the problem, if government helped rather than hindered it.
That’s what you’ll learn if you visit the Andrew Jackson Houses, a public-housing project in The Bronx.
Longtime resident Danny Barber, president of the Citywide Council of public-housing tenants, has every reason to support Mamdani’s proposal: It’s as much as a mile-long walk from the project’s core to the nearest markets — and many of his neighbors are elderly or disabled.
Several bodegas are closer, but they charge on average 17% more than supermarkets for similar items.