You could be right in the long run, and it does feel like going into hiding.. but it's protecting me, for now, in my red state. I'm willing to play a shell game if it means I can still learn what I need to.

My take is that universities are being smart and preempting legislative action. By reorganizing these programs into an independent school, it can be better protected from outside attacks. Agreed that it's chilling, but these are the professors that know history and what's coming, so taking action.

Right, forgot we were talking economics, gotta call it discriminatory pricing

I believe there needs to be incentives for mom and pops to get back into the game in these rural areas. Maybe co-ops or buying clubs need to come back in style, because clearly it's a market failure.

Fair, but this isn't exclusively an urban problem. Communities across the country are without grocery stores. Subsidies might solve for rural communities too, if it comes from the state level, but it was never a shrinkage issue for them, it was unfair pricing.

I don't think you understand the problem very well, but thanks for not denying there is one.

So, is there a solution for this problem markets have caused, or do we keep ignoring costs and negative externalities and hope for the best?

Did you read the article? Have you been to any of these places, or do you get your worldview entirely from graphs? I'm not even convinced you're human.

*some* Americans have benefited by lower prices due to monopoly concentration, which Mitchell argues is a result of not enforcing the R-P act. Others now have no groceries at all.
You may be right on the R-P act being bad law, but your position seems inhumane, that it's fine to not have groceries.