Photo: Joshua Rawson Harris | Unsplash
Chicago is making plans to potentially open a grocery store of its own. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office commissioned a feasibility study looking into the idea of establishing a city-run grocery store, which would make Chicago the first major U.S. city to do so. This comes after the city has tried to incentivize grocery stores to open where they are most needed, including offering cash subsidies and tax credits, and after six stores have closed within the last two years. “There are places in both urban and rural communities where the market doesn’t meet the moment,” says Ameya Pawar, a former Chicago alderman who now works for the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit focused on fighting inequality. “What we need in communities is banks and grocery stores and pharmacies that are permanently tethered to the community.” In some Chicago neighborhoods, more than half of low-income residents live more than a half mile from a grocery store, which meets the USDA definition of a food desert. In the past some cities have tried and failed to make city-run grocery stores profitable. There are also successes, including situations where nonprofits are sustaining their grocery store operations.
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