Maybe the subsidized transit is normal in europe, and universal childcare in some parts of europe (definetly not all of western europe), but this article is stretching when claiming state run grocery stores are normal.
Its also conveniently leaving out the policy ideas on reducing policing, and introducing mental health crisis workers which have been tried in the US (SF) and worked disastrously.
On policing, Urban Alchemy is the company that was contracted in SF. Having worked directly with Urban Alchemy for years in LA, their staff are severly underqualified and 95% of the time will do nothing once arriving on site. The most I've ever seen them do is break up a fight. Is doing nothing better than actively harming people and making the situation worse, as the police often do? Yes. Is it improving the situation? No.
Also, what is your definition of success? No first responder can prevent a crime from happening, all responders arrive after crime has occurred. Putting people into cages as the only option actually leads to worse outcomes for crime. And after decades and billions of dollars spent on the failed war on drugs, we know that is not a viable or successful approach. Part of the job these alternatives are supposed to be doing, is addressing root upstream causes of crime.
On the other hand, the alternative to policing pilot in Denver, Support Team Assistance Response (STAR), has been a wild success.
I’m continually frustrated by the amount of press the grocery store thing gets. I’m probably against it, though it’s hard to know because there are not clearly outlined policy goals for what the grocery stores would try to accomplish and how. But that’s beside the point. My issue is that a government run grocery stores are one the least remarkable points of Mamdani’s platform. NYC already has a budget shortfall of ~$5bn and he wants to spend billions on free buses, tens of billions on child care, and (IIRC) borrow another $70 billion for housing development.
NYC tax revenues are not growing and even optimistic estimates of the proposed tax increases (which the mayor doesn’t have the power to impose anyway) top out at $8 billion.
This is the epitome of magical thinking. Even with the most optimistic estimates of revenue increases and conservative estimates for the proposed spending, the numbers are miles away from adding up. And we’re talking about some municipal grocery stores? Like even if he really screws it up, the cost is probably only in the hundreds of millions.
He's been very clear that he intends on raising taxes to cover the budget shortfall and additional services.
"Zohran’s revenue plan will raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion. And he will tax the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers—those earning above $1 million annually—a flat 2% tax (right now city income tax rates are essentially the same whether you make $50,000 or $50 million). Zohran will also implement common-sense procurement reform, end senseless no-bid contracts, hire more tax auditors, and crack down on fine collection from corrupt landlords to raise an additional $1 billion."
Yea, I’m aware of that. Problem is that it is innumerate. Raising $6 to $8 billion in revenue is not enough to cover a $5 billion deficit and something like $50 billion in additional services and housing development.
Would be great if Democrats can stay the party of serious governance and not style drift to the post-truth style embraced by modern Republicans. I’m glad we’re nominating young, charismatic candidates, but we need to stay in reality.
A liquor store and a grocery store aren't the same thing, they were set up for different reasons, have different policy goals and are run differently. Also if the goal is helping with "food deserts" - which seems like a tenuous claim already for a city with a ton of bodegas there are better less costly solutions. When comparing actual state run grocery store pilots (in the US) they have been a disaster - see the kansas city example here (https://www.kcur.org/news/2025-08-12/kansas-city-grocery-sto...)
Denver is the best example in the US that saw limited success, and one of the very few - in most places similar approaches were tried (in the US), we were worse off then just keeping police as the primary responders. In NYC specifically we tried a pilot recently, and it was (unsurprisingly) ineffectual - where police had to be called as backup 65% anyway(https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/audit-of-the-behavioral-...). So no in NY at least police don't make the situation worse thats a myth.
Government owned liquor stores were put in place because the free market was too good at supplying people with liquor, and governments wanted to put restrictions and guardrails around people's access to it.
Yeah we have state liquor stores in NH and they are much more expensive[1] than driving down to Massachusetts and going to total wine. The point of the stores is not to supply people in the Shire with liquor for cheaper. It's to make it more expensive and then use the profits to fund the state.
It's so thoroughly different in goals from the NYC plan that I'm in awe people would conflate them.
[1] For example Seven Deadly Zins wine is $19 in NH, currently very on sale for $13. Or its just $11.49 at Total Wine in Mass without any sale at all! Ketel One vodka is $38 in NH, or $28 in Mass.
Mamdani and politicians with similar 'progressive' positions are those advocating for reducing them (either through budget cuts, or moving resources to worse initiatives), while the most robust studies on crime have shown beat cops to be pretty effective for reducing crime (see the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment, and other meta analyses)
Per the article, they exist elsewhere, including elsewhere in the US. Most European cities don't typically really suffer from the problem that New York apparently has (where groceries in New York are apparently significantly more expensive than outside, and significant areas don't have proper supermarkets at all). If they did, in many countries there would absolutely be some sort of intervention.
Sidenote: Has there been serious research into _why_ these 'food deserts' happen (or at least their urban form; the rural version seems more explicable), and/or why they seem to happen in the US more than in other developed countries, does anyone know? On the face of it, even as a fairly market-sceptical person, this is one that I would kind of expect the invisible hand to deal with.
99pi has a nice podcast on food deserts. It puts the blame on the decision from the FTC to stop enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act, and only use consumer prices as the metric for antitrust rulings.
>"State run grocery stores" perhaps aren't, but consumers' co-operatives [...] are
That's a pretty important difference you're eliding. "state run" is where most of the objection is. Coops get nowhere near the pushback (if any) that state run businesses (ie. "communism") get from Americans.
"state run" is also probably incorrect. AFAIK Mamdani will be the mayor of New York City, which is a city, not a state. Cities in Europe tend to run businesess outside of their core competency quite often. Is that not the case in the US?
>"state run" is also probably incorrect. AFAIK Mamdani will be the mayor of New York City, which is a city, not a state.
"state" in this case refers to "government", not US "states". You see this type of usage elsewhere, for instance "state" schools[1], which are often operated at the city/county level, not state level.
> You see this type of usage elsewhere, for instance "state" schools[1]
Schools operated at the city/county level are called public schools in the US, no? So in the same vein these stores should either be called public or city stores.
Note that the Guardian article instead talks about "city-run" and "municipal-run" grocery stores. And the reason I'm mentioning this is that "city-run" sounds harmless while "state run" is exactly what you mention: "Coops get nowhere near the pushback (if any) that state run businesses (ie. "communism") get from Americans."
>Schools operated at the city/county level are called public schools in the US, no?
Right, I'm pointing out that "state" in the english language isn't limited to just US states. If you're not convinced by that, there's also "state" owned enterprises in countries that don't even have "states" (eg. China).
>Note that the Guardian article instead talks about "city-run" and "municipal-run" grocery stores. And the reason I'm mentioning this is that "city-run" sounds harmless while "state run" is exactly what you mention: "Coops get nowhere near the pushback (if any) that state run businesses (ie. "communism") get from Americans."
The only difference between municipally and states owned enterprises (both the US state kind and "government" kind) is in scale. Objections to state ownership mainly revolve around state coercion (you can't opt out of a municipal grocery store, especially if it's funded by tax dollars), and potential for self-dealing. Both these concerns exist for municipal grocery stores, but not coops.
We've got plenty of state run businesses though, that's certainly normal as well. Just not grocery stores in particular, or at least I'm not aware of any around.
State-run liquor stores are quite normal in Norway. So at least there's that, it depends on your definition of groceries. I've just walked home with the kid and people are drinking beer at 11AM, which is… liquid cereal.
You can pick and choose what you see from the audit (though in no circumstances is it an astounding success).
The general points i'm trying to get across is
- Responder safety/back-up needs mean you can’t fully “swap out” police. This program still needed to bring in police most of the time.
- Coverage and scale are hard in an actually big city, like NYC. (also why denver's success in a tiny city is sort of a useless comparison)
So why not just equip police to better handle mental health cases instead of creating a different task force which doesn't have any of structure the police already has? This isn't rhetorical - the reason is idealogical stubbornness, there are better solutions for achieving mamadanis goals.
> You can pick and choose what you see from the audit
I don't think so: Pick something that supports your claim. Right now it looks like you linked to it without even knowing what it said, hoping nobody would read it and you could claim some authority.
> Responder safety/back-up needs mean you can’t fully “swap out” police. This program still needed to bring in police most of the time.
The audit specifically says that they can't evaluate that; they don't know because they lack the appropriate data.
Is there something else you base that claim on?
> why not just equip police to better handle mental health cases
Because it takes a lot of training that police don't have time or possibly the propensity for. Even police have long complained that they are given jobs that they aren't suited for.
> the reason is idealogical stubbornness
You answered your own question with that ... there is nothing more I can add!
Its also conveniently leaving out the policy ideas on reducing policing, and introducing mental health crisis workers which have been tried in the US (SF) and worked disastrously.