When studying food insecurity, researchers distinguish between “availability” (what is already on the shelves) and “access” (what shoppers can afford). In American cities especially, it is access to food, not availability, that often leads to food insecurity: there is too much food on the shelves where food-insecure people shop; There is not always enough money in their pockets. Ironically, this may make it difficult to address food insecurity with solutions that focus primarily on food. In fact, it is Mamdani’s other policies — not public grocery stores — that may provide more useful policy models for municipalities seeking to eliminate food insecurity.
The argument for general grocery stores in New York City goes like this: a large number of people across the five boroughs—hundreds of thousands, and Up to three million By some estimates, they live in so-called food deserts, or areas where fresh, affordable food is not available within a mile, which may push some low-income families to rely on more expensive or unhealthy food options. This is exacerbated by rising food costs, driven in part by consolidation and greed on the part of the country’s major grocery companies. In this context, a public option for grocery stores would challenge corporate dominance and combat food insecurity, treating food as a public good and providing food as something akin to a utility, like “water, transportation, or libraries,” Alex Pernell estimates. suit in Jacobins: “Basic infrastructure owned by the people.” General grocery stores, one Influential policy brief They can not only provide access to affordable food, he argues, but serve as centers for well-paid employment and “values-based” purchasing of high-quality food, transforming food deserts into bountiful gardens of food abundance.
But there’s not much evidence that food deserts — the concept that means physical distance is the biggest barrier to a healthy, affordable diet — are a big factor in cities. This idea holds up better In rural areasas corporate mergers shutter local grocery stores, forcing consumers to rely on meager local options like Dollar General or travel expensive long distances to obtain fresh food (USDA Defines a rural food desert Like any area where a significant portion of the population lives more than 10 miles from a grocery store). In the countryside, the case for general grocery stores is strong – despite the success rate in trials so far mixed.