NEW YORK, with over 5,000,000 inhabitants, has no effective market
system. The buildings are out of repair, there is little or no
organization, and the superintendent has testified before the New York
Food Investigation Commission (March 12, 1912) that on their
administration last year there was _a loss to the city treasury of
$80,000_. To that must be added due consideration of the inconvenience
to the consumers, producers and dealers, and the extra cost of handling
entailed by the lack of modern market methods. The city has almost
quadrupled its population in a generation, but the markets remain about
as they were. Many other cities in the United States not only testify
to the value of municipal markets as a means for lowering prices to the
consumer, but so guard their interests as to provide a very different
balance sheet.
Boston has a profit on its markets of $60,000, Baltimore $50,000, New
Orleans $79,000, Buffalo $44,000, Cleveland (Ohio) $27,507, Washington
(D. C.) $7,000, Nashville (Tenn.) $8,200, Indianapolis $17,220,
Rochester (N. Y.) $4,721, and St. Paul (Minn.) $4,085.
If the following facts concerning municipal markets are studied, also,
it will be seen that no city in any way comparable to New York fails to
make the municipal markets yield advantages both to the community and
the city treasury.