The nation's first food systems infrastructure agency

Public markets have existed since cities emerged, continuously adapting to the conditions of their time. Public markets can be more than food courts or tourist destinations.Our Public Markets will:

• Be developed, owned, and maintained by cities and municipalities

• Harbor and support multiple small businesses

• Be governed by local assemblies of vendors, customers, and community members

Public markets have long been mechanisms to build new food systems; they do so through the rules that govern them. Our Public Markets will be structured to create and support food systems that:

• Are affordable for all

• Consider food as medicine for nourishing healthy lives

• Support regional and sustainable agriculture

Our Public Markets will have Universal Appeal, offering something for everyone regardless of income or background. As is so uniquely proven at New York’s Essex Market, public markets can be democratic spaces where everyone feels at home.

This quality is especially important in the effort to combat the negative impacts of “Big Food” which continues pushing its addictive, highly processed products even knowing how dangerous they are to human health. Our Public Markets will  provide  a sanctuary from the Toxic Food Environment that permeates our daily lives and perpetuates the consumption of processed foods.

Unlike supermarkets, which are engineered to promote impulse-buying of unhealthy foods, Our Public Markets will:

• Feature affordable, culturally relevant whole and fresh ingredients

• Disallow or restrict the sale of highly processed or “junk” foods

• Offer healthful and affordable prepared meals 

We all have a right to affordable, healthy ingredients and prepared meals. Our Public Markets will cultivate a food system that provides these rights, and the culture to sustain it.

Corporations control every link of the supply chain in today’s food system. The supermarket, invented to replace public markets, is at the consumer end of that chain. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. 

Prioritizing profit over health is the root cause of today’s affordability crisis. Integral to the corporate food system is an agriculture that deplete the soil, destroys the biosphere, abuses animals and workers, and harms public health. 

Public markets, which long predate the industrial revolution and even capitalism, offer the only proven pathway to creating entirely new food systems that are free of corporate control, in alignment with the Mamdani Administration’s priorities. 

Our Public Markets will: 

• Create new supply chains, focusing on New York State and regional farms

• Support and regulate independent vendors, distributors, and other small businesses

• Prioritize public and environmental health

Unlike supermarkets, public markets have always been more than sites of commerce. Public markets function as civic infrastructure, places of assembly that are naturally suited to further public policy.

Our Public Markets will:

• Foster and support community participation in local governance

• Serve as a community resource and amenity, accessible to all for gatherings and engagement

• Offer public education centered on food and nutrition

Public markets support the concept of amoral economy whereby values such as labor, the environment, and public health take precedence over profit. Our Public Markets will further economic justice by:

• Supporting worker ownership and mutual aid

• Providing affordable health and liability insurance and other benefits

• Offering technical assistance and other resources 

Our Public Markets will prioritize collaboration with our region’s growers, processors, purveyors and distributors who are striving to develop healthy and accessible new food systems.

Our Public Markets draw structural elements from a number of successful (and still existing) precedents, including:

• GrowNYC Greenmarket: proof that large numbers of disparate, small business vendors can operate under shared guidelines. And the Greenmarket Farmer and Citizen Advisory Committee (FCAC) provides a working model for governance via vendor and community collaboration

• Essex Market: proof that public markets can have Universal Appeal, serve all price points, and function as civic infrastructure

• Chinatown Food System: proof that entire food systems can exist outside of corporate control

• Mercats de Barcelona: proof that cities can have extensive public market systems that support small businesses, affordability, and sustainable, regional agriculture

• Park Slope Food Coop (and coops in general): proof that community governance of food systems is both possible and durable, and of the benefits of volunteerism

As civic institutions, Our Public Markets will be:

• Permanent

• Indoors or Under Cover

• Open Daily

Echoing New York’s own tradition, Our Public Markets will feature vendors offering culturally relevant foods. We envision a future where every one of  NYC’s 59 Community Districts has a public market of its own. 

Public markets (unlike supermarkets) also lend themselves to open-air setups that can be rapidly deployed wherever they are needed most. Equipped with attractive and sanitary mobile carts and trucks, Our Public Markets will bring not only food but culture and community to remote sites often lacking in amenities.

Constellations of new public markets, emerging in New York and other cities, will forge the networks, synergies and collaborations that grow into new food economies.

Mayor Mamdani can extend his influence and build a lasting legacy by reviving municipal oversight of New York City’s food system. He can do so by reinstating the New York City Department of Markets, and reinventing it for our time.

The New York City Department of Markets will:

• Oversee affordable grocery pilots

• Manage and support existing retail and wholesale public markets

• Establish Our Public Markets next-generation public markets throughout the city

Both city and State governments have traditionally played strong roles in establishing and supporting food systems to benefit their residents. New York State still maintains its Department of Agriculture & Markets, but the “Markets” mission of this agency has long lain dormant. By reinstating the NYC Department of Markets, Mayor Mamdani will help reawaken its counterpart at the State. Together they will work to build new, sustainable supply chains between the city, the State, and region.