City-Owned Supermarkets Aren’t the Solution: Matthew Yglesias

Zohran Mamdani brings a lot of guts, charisma and hustle to his campaign for New York City mayor, along with a laudable desire to offer the public a break with a dysfunctional status quo. Unfortunately, the break he’s offering largely consists of bad ideas.

On that list, the idea of government-run grocery stores is far from the most pernicious — but it is the most grimly fascinating, in part because nobody seems to be asking for it. The demand to “freeze the rent” on the slightly less than half of the city’s rental stock that is subject to rent stabilization ...