Mayor Brandon Johnson, the lackey of local public employee unions, has just completed a feasibility study that says his idea to build three city-owned grocery stores is “necessary, feasible and implementable.” Nor is he alone. Earlier this year, the mayor of Atlanta announced plans for a municipal grocery store.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger, who helped author the Chicago study, explains its approach: “Rather than figure out how to coerce the private market into serving marginalized communities, the city is entering into the industry itself.”

In other words, coercion didn’t work so we’ll just take over.

It hasn’t worked in the past. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel spent $10.7 million in city money on a Whole Foods store, It closed two years ago. Four Walmarts also closed last year.

Of course, it’s not as if Chicagoans are in danger of being malnourished. Federal food stamps are readily available to anyone up to 165 percent of the poverty line. The Greater Chicago Food Depository already provides more than 70 million pounds of food a year through 700 pantries. Johnson’s city-owned food stores would just be another layer of bureaucracy.

Progressives love to talk about the “root causes” of urban decay. The “root causes” of food stores closing are violent crime, shoplifting, and soaring taxes and regulations. They are creating the very “food deserts” that progressives say the government must now spend oceans of money to solve.

If he really cared about Chicago residents, Mayor Johnson would prosecute criminals, put more police on the street, stop making excuses for looters, and end his lawsuits against carmakers for “making their vehicles too easy to steal.”

Our advice to Democratic delegates. Get out of your convention bubble and look around the city. You might learn some things that aren’t on your party’s platform.