And why do those of you attacking Costco not attack FreshDirect who use the streets as a warehouse (causing congestion and noise when their truck is double-parked across the street) and under-cutting the local grocery store as well.

Costco will be a benefit for the city and might make those sad excuses for supermarkets shape up their act. Wal-Mart where are you? We need you to compete with Duane Reade, Walgreens and the other dirty, overpriced and cramped local stores.

If the administration is serious about reducing traffic and making NYC greener, it must show us with actions: Allow big box stores only in transit friendly locations or force developers to make an area transit friendly before building. Why can't we have both development and efficiency? Thats how it's always been here. When gas hits $12/gallon the 2,500 spaces are going to sit vacant or turn into long-term storage.

Why is is so hard for politicians to look past two years from now?

meat=butcher
fish=fish monger
produce=fruit/vegetable stand/store
quick sundries=bodega
other stuff=local supermarket

The danger of the impulse buy of unneeded crap is not just true of shopping at Costco. It's true of shopping in general. But for those who insist on doing it, better to do it in NYC than outside.

Having one type of job in the city does not prevent other types, and trying to get rid of certain types of jobs doesn't make others thought to be more desirable magically appear. Someone has to save the money and borrow more, put it in a business that is likely to fail, and start signing paychecks.

Getting back to the food supply issue, ask the question why the FreshDirect concept is starting out in California and not NY, and why a similar concept was not developed here? Because NY is run by those with existing privileges, to the exclusion of new entrants, in government and in business.

Do you really think existing players would stand for having the city divert tax dollars from other services to subusize competition, even "non-profit" competition? Wouldn't Lipsky be able to stuff that? How about just allowing such competition?

I guess he couldn't stop all the super drugstores, and they are overbuilt enough that storefronts of that size might become available, but still...

The fact that the Coop bought its building back when it was affordable contributes significantly to its ability to keep prices low. So the city could substitute for the market (our "leaders" are willing to throw hundreds of millions, if not billions, of taxpayer funds at sports stadia, so why not Food Coops?). More Coops are springing up, but the real estate is the main barrier to entry.

The city could seed Food Coops into many communities. Having a local Coop would obviate the need for a car, too, and the prices would likely match or beat Costco's.

Speaking of which, Car Free Nation, you are so right about the danger of the foolish impulse buy at Costco. Three years ago, my mayonnaise-loving wife thought that it would be a good idea to buy one of those industrial-sized jars of Hellman's. Were finally a tuna-salad sandwich or two away from finishing it, at which point I may actually be able to fit some new stuff into the fridge.

And dchadwick (#4) is also right: Bloomberg ran a big business and that's where his sympathies lie, as seen over and over again. The mayor argues that we need stores like Costco to weather the coming storm, but even if that's true, he forgets that the storm will end and we'll be left with a big-box store with 2,500 parking spaces!

Larry's comment in #18 about city residents driving out of town to get groceries is also accurate, though things have changed since the Dinkins era, and there have been some gains in the quality and availability of food here (though the East Side and many poorer neighborhoods are seriously under-served). My own sense (from people I knew who used to shop in New Jersey and Westchester) is that many folks who drive to shop out of town do so in part to justify having the car in the first place. In the end, some of them realized that having the car wasn't worth the hassle -- or the cost.

(By the way, Larry, our city's dependence on the finance industry is a very mixed blessing, as we'll see over the next several years.)

So the question is really about what makes a better city. Is it big box stores that sell cheaper food in bulk and bring in some service jobs but attract heavy automobile use and make it tougher for smaller businesses to survive? (This is not to defend the grocery industry in New York City -- it's one of the poorest run, least imaginative around.)

Or should the city work to improve neighborhoods, including fostering the availability of good and reasonably priced food (harder to do, but possibly creating as many jobs if not more)? How can that be done?

I came to this city a quarter-century ago in large part because you could get everything you needed within a few blocks. It's a tremendous attraction to many of us. I know that's not the case in every neighborhood, but it will be less so as more and more big-box stores arrive.

At the same time, I wouldn't oppose a Costco in a location unlikely to generate significantly more traffic and without the parking spaces. While the Costco model requires autos, as JK points out, maybe they can think imaginatively and dump the parking lot. Until then, opposing their entry in the city is worth the fight.

Problem here is that Costco's business model is based on car trips. There is no setting aside parking. Just like there is no setting aside parking for IKEA.

Home Depot managed to set aside parking. If they can do it, anyone can.

So the problem isn't Costco per se. The question I asked is once again (and they'll know this specifically) how many Manhattan residents and businesses patronize their other stores?

Remember that while at City Planning, I was one of the "they." We had a million people on welfare. They needed entry level jobs. And the data showed that city residents, in droves, were driving to the suburbs, which were keeping the jobs and tax revenues, to shop. Even for food!

The recovery of New York's "local" consumer economy, as opposed for the Manhattan-based portion of its economy that produces for global markets (which recovered in the 1980s), is a huge success -- especially in the outer boroughs. It has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands, and cut VMT.

Production vs. consumption? You sound like those Dinkins-era analysts who looked across industries and decided finance wasn't good because it only provided jobs for the rich, and retail wasn't good because the wages wasn't high enough. So what was the one industry those folks thought worth promoting? The diamond industry. Yep, high wage skilled jobs, that will promotes equality. But if everyone is equal, who is going to buy enough diamonds to employ 4 million diamond workers?

You're right, Costco is definitely the best of the bix box retailers in terms of paying its employees well. I should have been more clear.

My complaint is more general. There's been a trend of promoting retailing as economic development. The problem is these jobs center on consumption. Industrial jobs centering on production pay much better. We need to stop accepting low-quality consumption jobs as economic development deserving of public sector support.

Promote industrial production jobs and the retailing consumption jobs will follow. This is the formula that will maintain a strong middle class and healthy wealth distribution, instead of huge money piled at the top end, a hollowed out middle, and a vast number of people in poverty standing behind the counters of the retail playgrounds of the rich.

All of that said, I'd much rather have a Costco than a Wal Mart.

Whoops....