January 17, 2025

Should Cities Open Their Own Grocery Stores? Forty million Americans live in food deserts. Can government-owned grocery stores fix this? Groceries are about 20 percent more expensive than they were pre-pandemic. Residents who’ve seen their community grocery stores close must trek long distances for fresh food. A New York Assembly member and Chicago’s mayor have proposed creating city-owned grocery stores to bring residents affordable, fresh food. Government-owned groceries may be a new idea for big cities, but not for rural America. A handful of small towns and cities have tried similar ideas, but with mixed success. Governing magazine via Portside

An entry from the Progressive Maryland blog “News You Can Use” – Tax increases are not popular, as “Poll: Taxes to erase deficits pose political problem for Moore”   shows, but taxes on the wealthy and corporations may get more traction. The Maryland Center on Economic Policy has a proposal. Update Thursday: “Gov. Wes Moore [in his address to legislators] Wednesday proposed a budget he said will promote long-term economic growth and provide tax cuts to many, but it will be balanced on tax increases on high-income earners in the state.” Maryland Matters

MD House Appropriations panel gets a crash course on potential Trump cuts to Medicaid. No one knows for sure what cuts President-elect Donald Trump has in store for Medicaid after he is sworn in to his second term Monday. But Maryland officials are pretty sure it’s not going to be good for the state’s bottom line. That was the takeaway from a House Appropriations Committee briefing Tuesday from the Department of Legislative Services, who said cuts could end up costing from tens of millions to a couple billion if the state decided to pick up the affected services. States Newsroom/Maryland Matters

Reading Mike Davis by firelight. David Wallace-Wells recalls the prophecies of the radical geographer, who died in 2022, about the recurrent, opulent ornaments of his home town: “Ecology should doom development in a place like the Santa Monica Mountains, Davis believed; instead, imperious cultural logic has repeatedly dictated the opposite.’Each new conflagration would be punctually followed by reconstruction on a larger and even more exclusive scale,’ he wrote, ‘encouraged by artificially cheap fire insurance, socialized disaster relief and an expansive public commitment to ‘defend Malibu.’” NYT Opinion

The 51 best songs to come out of DC over the past year. From The Worthwhiler, catch up on DC’s vibrant creative scene: “Heritage sites like U Hall and Twins and 18th Street Lounge and the list goes on had been ingloriously shuttered. More than a handful of venerated bands had bailed for greener pastures, and still more were one foot outside the beltway. Affordable rehearsal space became as rare as a good house show…but hope floats for a reason.”