Why Mamdani Is Right About City-Run Grocery Stores
Public grocery stores would not eliminate hunger. But they could function as stabilizing infrastructure in food systems that are currently brittle and uneven.
Amira Santiago leaves her apartment by 8:45 am most mornings, pushing a folding cart through cracked sidewalks and traffic haze to reach the food pantry on time. She lives in East New York, in a ZIP code where grocery stores have vanished, corner delis double as pharmacies, and fresh food is scarce. What ends up in her cart depends entirely on what’s on the shelf. Usually it’s canned goods, powdered milk, maybe some onions or carrots. Today it’s dry cereal, pasta, and an overripe cantaloupe. Her son Malik skipped breakfast again. There’s nothing left in the fridge she can turn into a meal.
This is not an outlier. It is the consequence of systems that stopped functioning long ago. And it helps explain why a political upset in New York City on June 24, 2025 carries meaning far beyond the five boroughs.
That day, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist assemblymember from Queens, defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor. The result was historic, but more importantly, it made visible a shifting political consensus. Voters rejected the narrative that government must limit its ambitions. They chose a candidate who insists that public institutions should do more than regulate; they should provide. Mamdani's platform spoke directly to people like Amira, whose daily struggles reflect the withdrawal of basic public functions from everyday life.
Mamdani’s proposal reflects the reality that food access cannot be left entirely to private enterprise.
Central to Mamdani’s platform is a proposal to launch a city-run grocery system. The plan is straightforward. Five municipally owned grocery stores, one in each borough, would operate without a profit motive. They would serve areas where the private sector has pulled out or never invested in the first place. The stores would source food wholesale, hire union labor, and reinvest in the neighborhoods they serve. These would not be pilot programs tied to foundation grants or nonprofits operating under precarious contracts. They would be permanent public institutions.
Opponents were quick to ridicule the idea. Billionaire grocer John Catsimatidis warned of industry disruption. Mayor Eric Adams dismissed the proposal outright. Think tanks called it inefficient and unnecessary. The comparison to “Soviet-style” provisioning spread quickly, suggesting central planning and bureaucratic waste. Others raised concerns about the city outcompeting small independent grocers or failing to ensure supply chain efficiency, leading to chronic understocking and quality control issues. But these objections rarely addressed the basic premise: Millions of New Yorkers, like Amira Santiago, already live in neighborhoods where food is hard to find, overpriced, and nutritionally inadequate.
Across the city, more than 3 million residents live in low-access food areas. In Brownsville, Mott Haven, East Flatbush, and parts of Staten Island, residents rely on corner stores and fast-food chains that carry little or no fresh produce. These conditions are not the result of natural market forces. They reflect decades of public and private disinvestment, often concentrated in communities of color. Grocery redlining—the practice by which supermarket chains avoid low-income neighborhoods based on demographic risk factors—has left entire ZIP codes without stable access to food. In the past five years alone, more than 100 full-service grocery stores in New York City have closed, primarily in lower-income neighborhoods.
The result is predictable. People pay more for less. They commute longer distances for basic goods. They ration meals. Children go to school without breakfast. Public health data shows elevated rates of diabetes, hypertension, and diet-related illness in these same neighborhoods. Hunger is not simply a function of poverty. It is shaped by the spatial and logistical architecture of access—or its absence.
Nationally, the picture is no better. As of 2023, 18 million households in the United States reported experiencing food insecurity at one point. Since the pandemic, grocery prices have risen nearly 30%, while SNAP benefits have failed to keep pace. In 2015, 44 U.S. counties had no grocery store at all. On South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, families routinely drive 80 miles round-trip for produce. In rural Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Appalachia, the nearest full-service store might be a two-hour round trip. These are not temporary disruptions. They are ongoing crises that have been normalized.
Mamdani’s proposal reflects the reality that food access cannot be left entirely to private enterprise. When profitability becomes the determining factor for whether people can eat, large segments of the country are left behind. In neighborhoods where chains cannot turn reliable margins, stores close. Where customer data indicates low discretionary spending or high SNAP usage, suppliers scale back. The grocery industry, like any other, is designed to maximize return. It is doing what it was built to do. But the outcome is a landscape filled with price inflation, scarcity, and abandonment.
Public grocery stores would not eliminate hunger. But they could function as stabilizing infrastructure in food systems that are currently brittle and uneven. They could provide consistent access to affordable food, especially in neighborhoods where no alternatives exist. They could also serve as community hubs, offering services like SNAP enrollment, health screenings, nutrition classes, or childcare coordination. Their purpose would not be to replace private markets, but to serve where those markets have withdrawn or refused to invest.
Mamdani’s victory sends a message that voters are ready for governments that solve real problems.
The concept is far from unprecedented. Military commissaries already provide subsidized food to service members across the country. State-run liquor stores operate in Pennsylvania, Utah, and New Hampshire, generating revenue while serving a public function. In St. Paul, Kansas, a town of fewer than 600 residents, the only grocery store is city-owned and locally operated. In Alaska, the federal Bypass Mail program subsidizes food shipments to rural villages. These are not theoretical constructs. They are functioning examples of public provisioning.
Of course, the success of any public grocery system will depend on implementation. Poorly managed public programs can erode trust and fuel political backlash. Mamdani’s plan will require serious design: transparent procurement, equitable site selection, accessible transportation connections, competitive wages, and meaningful community oversight. But the risks of a poorly run store must be weighed against the ongoing costs of inaction. In New York, nearly 1 in 4 children live in food-insecure households. The absence of public response is not neutral. It is itself a decision, with measurable health and economic consequences.
What Mamdani’s campaign has done is shift the boundaries of political imagination. Cities like Chicago and Atlanta are now exploring public grocery models. Federal tools such as the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and the Community Economic Development Grant program could support them. Philanthropic institutions, once focused exclusively on nutrition education, are beginning to fund food infrastructure. Local governments have the capacity to act. What they have often lacked is the political permission to do so.
That permission now exists. Mamdani’s victory sends a message that voters are ready for governments that solve real problems. The campaign drew on a deep well of frustration among New Yorkers who have watched their neighborhoods lose not just grocery stores, but clinics, schools, and public transportation. It articulated a basic expectation: that cities should function, that infrastructure should be visible, and that the state should be present where the market disappears.
In the months ahead, other cities will watch closely. If New York moves forward, it may offer a blueprint for how public institutions can reenter the business of meeting essential needs. If it hesitates, the message will still resonate. A candidate won by promising groceries—not charity, not deregulation, but a public store with stocked shelves and affordable prices.
There is a lesson in that. Governance is not only about writing checks or issuing permits. It is also about provision. People trust institutions when those institutions show up with something tangible. In that sense, a bag of groceries might be more than food. It might be the start of a new civic contract.
If Mamdani’s proposal succeeds, it will not be because it was visionary. It will be because it was honest about what people are living through—and offered a way out.
