Anonymous #1 5w

ngl i’ve lived in baltimore my entire life and never know that grocery store existed so they definitely did a shit job promoting that

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Anonymous #2 5w

The fact you lived there your whole life and never knew about it is part of the failure. A store that can’t reach the local population it’s meant to serve proves the model doesn’t work.

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Anonymous #1 5w

well Mamdani has an incredible social media presence, so if they were to open one up, i can’t imagine that he wouldn’t post about it to encourage people to go every so often. it’s like if a small business doesn’t have social media or a website and is just… there… they need to promote it and be active online and it genuinely might be successful

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Anonymous #1 5w

Detroit has had multiple instances of successful “state sponsored” food/ grocery providers. Detroit Green Grocery project and Detroit Food Commons to name two…

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Anonymous #2 5w

Social media can’t fix bad margins. If a store loses money on every sale due to theft, costs, or low volume, more people knowing about it just means it loses money faster.

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Anonymous #3 5w

Short-term projects aren’t proof of a sustainable model. A grocery store needs to survive years, not months, without constant subsidy. Detroit’s experiments are still heavily dependent on outside funding, which is the same problem we’re talking about here.

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Anonymous #1 5w

Sure but you made it seem like they were a complete failure already when that isn’t the case and, so far, have been seen to be largely successful in their communities as grocery alternatives. Kinda sounds like you’re moving the goalpost now…

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Anonymous #3 5w

The goalpost hasn’t moved, at all. It’s always been about long-term sustainability without constant subsidy. Being popular in the short term isn’t the same as being viable, and that’s the point I’ve been making from the start.

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Anonymous #1 5w

You gave Detroit as an example of having government subsidized grocery stores saying that it “faced shortages, closures, or collapse” But when I said that isn’t the case in the example of modern programs in Detroit, you shifted the goalpost by saying that instead of having shortages, closures, and collapse it instead has to be shown to be successful in the long term.

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Anonymous #1 5w

idk how it would all work because I don’t know the business model of these things, but #3 said there are successful ones which means they can leverage their business model as a template almost. if it worked for them then with small adjustments to fit to the specific city, in theory it would do just as well

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Anonymous #1 5w

Obviously it’s relatively new, but like I’ve pointed out, BOTH programs so far (and I’m pretty sure there are at least two others in Detroit as well) have been seen as widely successful. Not without their share of problems obviously but they seem to have gotten better over time. So I don’t see how this is a bad thing in areas with low availability to fresh food…

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Anonymous #3 5w

And the thing is, people like #1 don’t WANT it to succeed

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Anonymous #3 5w

If something only works while you’re constantly holding it up, it doesn’t actually work.

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Anonymous #2 5w

If you don’t know how it works, you can’t know it works somewhere else and if it only works somewhere else, that’s proof it doesn’t automatically work here.

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Anonymous #1 5w

You’re right, I don’t think we should have employees working at any grocery stores in fact, that would be too much propping it up.

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Anonymous #1 5w

I said in theory lol

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Anonymous #1 5w

Who said it’s constantly being held up? Why is government subsidization bad if it works? One the ones I listed, I think the Commons, is a worker’s Co-op, that has received government assistance in the form of policy push and I believe monetary subsidies. You know what else is heavily subsidized that you are more than likely entirely reliant on? The entire US agricultural system as it stands today. Government subsidies keep US Farmers farming. Without the subsidies they wouldn’t be able to

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Anonymous #2 5w

Theory is not reality

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Anonymous #1 5w

Supply the needs of the country in the first place. That system seems to work pretty well considering the over abundance of food we have on aggregate.

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Anonymous #3 5w

Farm subsidies keep food existing. Grocery store subsidies keep a specific store existing. You can have plenty of food in the country and still have a store fail for the same local reasons we’ve been talking about.

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Anonymous #1 5w

Right but that’s because of scale. You could say the same thing for farmers. That a specific farm only exists because of subsidies… I mean, that’s like the VAST majority of family owned farms frankly.💀 If we had a system that showed grocery store’s subsidies worked and we scaled it up from there I don’t see how that could be a bad thing. It kinda seems like we’re seeing the beginning phases of that in cities like Detroit.

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Anonymous #3 5w

You’re pointing to scale, but location matters just as much. Are these Detroit “successes” in Midtown, Corktown, and New Center, or in neighborhoods like Brightmoor, Chandler Park, Osborn, anywhere on seven mile? If they only work in the easy areas, that’s not proof the model survives where the margins kill stores.

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Anonymous #1 5w

The food commons is on Woodward Ave near New Center. I think showing that it works there as a proof of concept doesn’t show any proof it wouldn’t work in other areas.

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Anonymous #3 5w

How different is West Grand & Woodward in New Center from 7 & Evergreen or Conner & Gratiot? One has hospitals, WSU, steady foot traffic, and redevelopment money pouring in. The others have high vacancy, low investment, and some of the highest crime not just inthe city but in the United States. Success in one doesn’t prove viability in the other.

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Anonymous #4 5w

And I'm still cooking.

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Anonymous #1 5w

You cooking:

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Anonymous #1 5w

i disagree-- i think the other arguements presented hold up better than yours

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Anonymous #4 5w

Ok, let go, present one.

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Anonymous #1 5w

im not interested. i agree with what's already been said and i dont feel the need to add on to what i believe to be a finished discussion

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Anonymous #4 5w

Ok, so you can't articulate a single point. You’re done.

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Anonymous #1 5w

not at all what i said, but it’s clear you arent here for a discussion, you want the high of an argument-- my comment was to identify you, not argue with you

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Anonymous #4 5w

Cool, I’m OP Sherlock.

1