Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20260731135950/https://jacobin.com/2026/07/zohran-mamdani-nyc-public-grocery-plan

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.