I watched Chicago promise food equity. Now my neighborhood has empty shelves
On the South Side of Chicago, we all know the script. The government announces with great fanfare some new program that is going to come save us and make our lives better. Ribbons are cut, and the aldermen and bureaucrats toast themselves as saviors, another notch of the "good" in their belts. Then time passes and, as sure as a 30-point game used to be for Michael Jordan, the program fails and there’s no one around to own up to the failure.
We recently experienced another failure when, on July 25, seven Save A Lot stores operated by Yellow Banana on Chicago’s South and West Sides closed their doors for good.
By closing day, shoppers encountered half-empty shelves and little fresh produce, tangible evidence that the stores were shutting down. Where can they go now in neighborhoods already struggling with limited options? My own immediate neighborhood doesn't have one supermarket. We have residents without cars and residents with disabilities, and they’re wondering where they can go next.
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One local woman even stepped up and said she would love to take over the Englewood store at 63rd and Halsted and make it work for the community where she grew up. They didn’t listen to her or care. The store still closed.
Beginning under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago committed millions in public financing to rehabilitate and reopen six Save A Lot stores on the South and West Sides as part of an effort to preserve grocery access.
Many of us saw the problem right off the bat: the government was funding both the stores (the supply side) and the customers (the demand side). Chicago provided Yellow Banana with $13.5 million in TIF financing to acquire, rehabilitate and reopen six Save A Lot locations.
Taxpayers were supporting both sides of the equation: Chicago subsidized the stores' redevelopment, while many shoppers relied on federally funded SNAP benefits to buy groceries.
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At the same time, many customers relied on federally funded SNAP benefits to purchase food.
Save A Lot said the stores had experienced a 26% year-over-year decline in SNAP/EBT tender types and cited reductions in SNAP benefits as one of the financial pressures on the stores.
When the SNAP benefits were cut, the stores saw a sharp drop in SNAP/EBT transactions.
To me, that illustrates the vulnerability of government-supported retail models when their economics depend heavily on continued public assistance.
When the survival of a store rests on government money flowing to both the seller and the buyer, you do not have a market. You have a political arrangement that is only as stable as the next appropriation. Cut either subsidy and the shelves empty out.
It was Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson who took many of us White-guilt Chicagoans on this "grand" vision. When he first announced that he was exploring the idea of government grocery stores, he said: "All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options. We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West Sides."
He promised the people the golden road to food equity.
Johnson's proposal was separate from the Lightfoot-era Yellow Banana deal, but it reflected the same instinct: when private grocery access falls short, turn to government intervention. The collapse of the Yellow Banana arrangement should give Chicagoans every reason to be skeptical of that approach.
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Look at the results of government-backed efforts in those same neighborhoods: closed stores and empty shelves. The mayor and his administration are now arranging transportation assistance for some affected seniors—another government response to a problem government spending failed to solve.
This same idiocy is repeating itself in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani is creating government-owned grocery stores.
New York has allocated $70 million for five planned municipal grocery stores, while the projected cost associated with constructing the planned 9,000-square-foot La Marqueta location has been reported at roughly $30 million.
I wonder if a real entrepreneur could launch a better-run store for just $4 to $5 million? But who knows? The socialist always responds to failure with the statement that true socialism has yet to be tried.
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The notion that government can do it better than the private citizen is absolute nonsense. Private owners succeed or fail by serving customers well, and this means quality, selection, prices and cleanliness. The government does not know that business. A bureaucrat is not a businessman. Bureaucrats playing with other people’s money have no skin in the game, and that means waste, inefficiency and, ultimately, failure. And the very people they tooted their horns about helping are now worse off.
Thomas Sowell said, "Although the big word on the left is ‘compassion,’ the big agenda on the left is dependency."
Shelby Steele later added that by accepting the idea that government will take over the responsibility that only we can take, "we relinquished authority over ourselves. We became child-like."
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What no one is saying is how the government has played a huge role in creating the conditions for these food deserts in the first place. It has cut off pathways to opportunity or incentivized people to stay dependent. Failing schools. Violent, unsafe streets that drive businesses away. Rules and policies that punish work and reward staying stuck in intergenerational poverty. A culture of dependency that tells people they are permanent victims who need the state as a caretaker. This is what they call the permanent underclass.
Now, the same government that helped create the problem wants to ride in as the savior, promising that its sterile, taxpayer-funded grocery stores will fix everything?
Our people want good schools with great teachers, safe playgrounds, paved roads, local businesses that can actually open and thrive, loans for homes and small enterprises, and real pathways to opportunity. We pay taxes. Government has a responsibility to provide the most basic elements of civic viability, and this means law and order, safety, parks and basic functioning services. Yet these neighborhoods are now also saddled with empty supermarkets, adding to an already blighted landscape.
Our people have been told America is evil, so government must ride to the rescue. They’ve been told the rich are out to get them, so government must redistribute. They’ve been fed nothing but hate for this country. But America is not a failure. We forget that America is an idea, a set of principles: individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the right to rise by your own effort. Principles are just principles, and they cannot fail. It is the people who abandon those principles who fail.
What happened in Chicago is a warning. We know that Mamdani and his supporters in New York are too arrogant to listen, and those stores will fail or sink into mediocrity with time. Where will Mamdani be then?
The people of Chicago, New York, and communities all across our country should demand something better. They should push for the principles that made America work in the first place.