In New York City, as TV’s widely viewed Without a Trace series regularly reminds us, people disappear all the time. But something new, a headline revealed last week, is now disappearing in New York. Grocery stores.
Over the last six years, researchers report, the number of supermarkets in New York has shrunk by a third. Three of the city’s top food chains — D’Agostino, Gristedes, and Key Food — “have each closed about a dozen stores since 2000.”
Why are New York’s supermarkets shutting down? No one needs to call in the FBI to investigate. Analysts already know the answer. New York is simply becoming too unequal — too economically top-heavy — to sustain the basics of modern American middle class life.
The enormous wealth now concentrated in New York has sent property prices so high that supermarkets can no longer afford to rent their urban spaces. The city’s “soaring real estate values,” the Washington Post notes, “are prompting property owners throughout the city to shutter grocery stores and sell to developers.”
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Tags: Food prices, Super rich
