Food Deserts - An Idea Indiana Would Never Think Of

 One Way to Fight Rising Food Prices: Public Grocery Stores | The New Republic

A novel solution to give Americans better access to fresh food is picking up steam across the country: government-owned, government-operated grocery stores. Such stores are touted by proponents as a way to provide groceries to so-called food deserts: communities that have been abandoned by for-profit stores that decided they weren’t worth the investment. But to succeed, public stores have to find ways to compete with the big chains that dominate the industry, keeping costs and prices low.

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Mamdani isn’t the only lawmaker embracing this approach to cheaper and more accessible groceries. This year, Madison, Wisconsin, is opening a city-owned grocery store in a food desert of its own. Atlanta is set to open two publicly run grocery stores, while Chicago is opening a city-run market. It’s not an entirely new concept. Erie, Kansas, has owned Stub’s Market since mid-2020, buying it when it was at risk of closing, which would have left the city without any grocery stores; city-owned grocery stores exist in two other Kansas towns, including the St. Paul Supermarket, which manages to turn a small profit that is reinvested in store operations.

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