It's the Brian Lairn Show on WNYC. I'm producer Amina Cerna filling in for Brian today, who is taking care of a family member.

Now we'll focus on one of the prime examples of New York

City's affordability crisis, the cost of groceries. There's a lot to complain about when it

comes to how expensive things have gotten around this city, skyrocketing rents and property taxes,

increased subway fares, meals at restaurants, the list goes on. But one major gripe we hear

over and over again is the cost of groceries. A pound of bananas costs how much?

Not only do we face sticker shock every time we walk through the aisles of our grocery stores,

but the varying costs between stores make it all seem so arbitrary.

You can't help but feel ripped off when the Seatown Kiwis are full $3 more than the ones sold at Whole Foods.

Mayor Zoran Mamdani identified this problem on the campaign trail when he promised a pilot of a chain of city-run grocery stores that would provide an affordable option.

According to a Data for Progress poll published after the primary, the idea was popular no matter what political party you ascribe to.

72% of Democrats, 64% of independence, and 54% of Republicans all like the idea of

implementing a municipal grocery store in their borough.

But a new article in the most recent edition of Vital City argues that Mayor Mom Donnie's

proposal is a, quote, distraction. Its author,

Stephen Smith, says that to get cheaper apples, the big apple must correctly diagnose why prices

are high. With me now to share his diagnosis and prescriptions for our grocery store woes is

Stephen Smith, executive director of the

Center for Building in North America. Hi, Stephen. Welcome to WIC. Thank you for having me.

So that price, that $3 price fluctuation in Kiwis definitely maybe sounded familiar to you. You

opened your piece in Vital City with that striking comparison. So can you walk us through what you found when you went grocery shopping that day and what it tells us about the state of grocery prices in New York City? Yeah, so for the last couple of years, I've been mostly doing my shopping at the Giant Wegmans at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I've been biking there. Most people drive, but I bike there from Williamsburg. And, you know, it was really cold in the beginning of this year.

And I just got back from a trip. I'd emptied out my fridge. And so I had to restock. So I went to my local grocer, which happened to be a sea town. And, you know, I didn't grow up in New York, but I've been in New York for, I don't know, 10, 15 years.

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