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Huh? Go back to the city run grocery stores that get fat operating subsidies, I liked that one better

More evidence that housing markets are connected: An AI boom in SF shows up first and most prominantly in the rich parts of SF, then the poorer parts, then the richer parts of the East Bay, then the poorer parts of the East Bay. This is why building lots of market rate housing is important

A good comparison to the Mamdani grocery stores are commissary stores, which sell at ~25% discounts compared to other grocers If you read their financials, commissaries provided 1.6 billion in savings, and got 1.57 billion in subsidies. So subsidies are basically 1:1 with savings.

I need someone (me??) to come out swinging against Mamdani's grocery store because it'll be *too effective* and cause massive gentrification and rent increases

the food dessert literature seems very weird. As far as I can tell, there are three sets of facts: 1. there are places with poor grocery store access and poor residents 2. these places have worse nutritional outcomes (conditional on demographics) 3. Adding grocery stores doesnt fix the bad outcomes

I’ll give Mamdani the benefit of the doubt on the numbers but best I can figure per census, if the city totally covered you could cut prices: 1. rent only ~2-4% 2. Rent, utilities, advertising, taxes, and depreciation ~6-10% 3. All of 2), no profit, and discounts only on some goods gets you to 20%

Much like with a work of literature, there comes a point with every chart where it ceases to be understood as the author intended and becomes a conduit of takes. be free, wage chart; i no longer can tell people in my mentions they are misreading you (you, reader, understood it. everyone else, idk)

Here's another way to see that rent is probably the most important long-term affordability constraint: In a world where rent (shelter) prices increased only as fast as the rest of the economy, purchasing power today would be about 13% higher (measured by wages)

Obligatory FRED posting: Yes, food prices increased faster than wages from 2022-2023; however, food prices have generally grown much slower than wages (including recently!)

Mini-thread on the Vancouver vacancy tax (and resulting study). The tax is Vancouver's 2017 empty homes tax; the study from CD Howe looks at its impact. The study claims the tax had large impacts on vacancies and minimal impacts on prices. As I'll discuss, I think there are problems with the study.