• grue@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Apparently, Atlanta is doing it.[1]

    I’m an Atlantan and this is the first I’m hearing of it. Neat!

    Reading the article, though, it’s really just that the city is subsidizing a private business (and in one of the two cases, acting as its landlord) in order to create an incentive to open in a food desert, not actually getting into the business of operating a grocery store directly itself.

    I mean, I got a loan from Invest Atlanta to help with the down payment on my house, but that doesn’t mean the city owns my house or that it’s some kind of ‘government housing.’

    • Zexks@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      I mean, I got a loan from Invest Atlanta to help with the down payment on my house, but that doesn’t mean the city owns my house or that it’s some kind of ‘government housing.’

      That really depends on who you ask these days doesn’t it.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Well, they sent me a letter a few years back saying the loan had been forgiven since I’d owner-occupied the home for a decade, so now the only other entity that might claim to own it is the creditor for my regular first mortgage. And the state (in the sense that my title is ‘fee simple’ and not ‘allodial’ so I’m still subject to things like taxes and eminent domain), I guess.

    • solrize@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      I see. Question then is whether the store operator gets to set the prices. Donald Trump of course lives in government housing right now, so that’s ok too.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      That’s a fair criticism. Usually with public-private partnerships there’s requirements they have to meet though. I’m curious what those are planned to look like. It could be something as lax as “continue operating at this location” or it could be “prices cannot exceed this value, and employees must have these things, etc.”

      It could be a good start to actual state operated grocery stores, but starting from scratch and setting up the logistics is an insane barrier, and it’s also part of the issue. It’s too hard to compete with existing companies, so they can do whatever they want and no one else can reasonably enter the market to compete with them.