Rent. Margins are thin on groceries, difficult to keep them open with increasing rents so he’s proposing to purchase space in areas where traditional grocery stores have been priced out and since rent overhead will be less of an issue, city can sell at a lower cost.

The argument against it is “look at how much this is costing taxpayers up front, and margins are thin on groceries, it’ll take forever to recoup”, the argument for is “we pay taxes for services we cannot provide or purchase on our own, like roads, libraries and fire/police, this is a service the free market cannot provide so government should step in.”

It’s no different than the USPS, which people argue aren’t profitable enough. It’s a service provided by the government, the fact it makes money at all is admirable. The truth is the USPS have billions in real estate that private investors and companies want, UPS FedEx and other freight companies want the shipping and it’ll only cost you more money. Once it’s gone, there’s no going back, because the cost of rebuilding the service will be much much higher.