"Atlanta proved it can work. Chicago is figuring it out. Now New York City has to execute and the margin for error is zero."

When HR&A Advisors, Local Progress, Mayors for America, and the Mayors Innovation Project convened a national webinar called The Public Grocery Playbook, I paid attention.

What I heard was both a genuine blueprint and a warning label and in the case of New York City, which has committed to opening five municipal grocery stores by the end of Mayor Mamdani’s first term, they need to absorb every word of it. READ The Lempert Report