A grocery industry expert argues that as our food supply becomes increasingly consolidated, expensive, and even dangerous, socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s publicly subsidized grocery plan takes bold steps to provide good, affordable food.
I lived in a food desert when I lived off campus in college (urban campus). The university kept buying the grocery stores and 7/11 and turning them into housing and unaffordable restaurants your parents could take you to when they visited.
When they finally forced the 7/11 out, students were pretty pissed. They didn’t have enough campus housing, so we were forced off campus into slum lord apartments, with a university that kept closing the places we could get eggs within a 30 minute walk/bus (the university severely lacked parking and discouraged cars). Last I visited, the CVS was forced out by the university too.
After 7/11 protests, the university put out a statement, saying they heard us, they were working with a private vendor and making sure the basics like eggs were cheap. And the eggs were cheap.
Unfortunately the rest if the grocery store was an overpriced unassembled charcuterie board that I shopped at once, when my mom was visiting for thanksgiving. I was living in a windowless 10’x10’ closet in an army cot at that time. Thanks to the cheese that cost half my rent and shitty hipster crackers, when my mom and I sat under the drunkenly drawn chalk target board on the drywall with kitchen-knife-sized-holes, I felt so blessed that I could buy eggs on campus.
The next day, my mom drove me to Aldi where I stocked up on chicken to put in the freezer.
I love Mandami, I think he has the potential to make America better by doing good in NYC. But with all eyes on him, I hope he heeds the warnings listed in the article. They make sense to me, based on my experiences.
Really cool article!
I lived in a food desert when I lived off campus in college (urban campus). The university kept buying the grocery stores and 7/11 and turning them into housing and unaffordable restaurants your parents could take you to when they visited.
When they finally forced the 7/11 out, students were pretty pissed. They didn’t have enough campus housing, so we were forced off campus into slum lord apartments, with a university that kept closing the places we could get eggs within a 30 minute walk/bus (the university severely lacked parking and discouraged cars). Last I visited, the CVS was forced out by the university too.
After 7/11 protests, the university put out a statement, saying they heard us, they were working with a private vendor and making sure the basics like eggs were cheap. And the eggs were cheap.
Unfortunately the rest if the grocery store was an overpriced unassembled charcuterie board that I shopped at once, when my mom was visiting for thanksgiving. I was living in a windowless 10’x10’ closet in an army cot at that time. Thanks to the cheese that cost half my rent and shitty hipster crackers, when my mom and I sat under the drunkenly drawn chalk target board on the drywall with kitchen-knife-sized-holes, I felt so blessed that I could buy eggs on campus.
The next day, my mom drove me to Aldi where I stocked up on chicken to put in the freezer.
I love Mandami, I think he has the potential to make America better by doing good in NYC. But with all eyes on him, I hope he heeds the warnings listed in the article. They make sense to me, based on my experiences.