Mayor Mike McGinn got himself into a bit of a food fight with the developers of a proposed West Seattle Whole Foods Market when he recommended against sacrificing a city-owned alleyway to the grocer, citing a lack of public benefit.

"One of our core economic development goals is to provide fair and livable wages and benefits for our residents," McGinn wrote in a July 15 letter to Seattle Department of Transportation director Peter Hahn, implying that ceding a city right-of-way to the notoriously antiunion Whole Foods would not meet this standard in a neighborhood already served by six unionized supermarkets.

The developers, Lennar Multifamily and Weingarten Realty, dispute the mayor's assessment, citing a $2 million public-benefits package that includes money for plazas, landscaping, and a bike lane in exchange for the city handing over a half-block-long alley. And Whole Foods vehemently defends its wages and benefits as "fair," "livable," and "competitive."

But all that misses the point. Whether or not Whole Foods ever breaks ground, McGinn has expanded the notion of "public benefit" beyond the typical physical- infrastructure improvements to include human infrastructure as well. It's a new, higher standard that acknowledges the city's obligation to promote living wage jobs and forces developers to do the same before asking the city to accommodate their projects.