New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani sent shockwaves through the political establishment after he clinched the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor.
Throughout his campaign, and especially since the stunning upset, Mamdani has faced attacks from both Republicans and centrist Democrats that paint him as far too extreme for New York City, let alone America. Part of that caricature is clearly fueled by racism. It’s also part of the backlash to Mamdani’s support for Palestinian rights, as even members of his own party baselessly accuse him of peddling antisemitism.
But much of the criticism has also centered on Mamdani’s campaign promises, which pledge to make New York City more affordable in small but meaningful ways with rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, and fare-free buses.
Many argue that Mamdani is only offering pie-in-the-sky proposals — nice policies in an ideal world, but unachievable in our not-so-ideal reality. But Mamdani’s splashy policies aren’t exactly foreign ideas, nor is he the first to try to implement them. They’ve been tried before, often with promising results.
Let’s take three of his policies that have gotten some of the most attention:
1. Rent freeze
Mamdani has proposed to impose a rent freeze. That means that landlords would be unable to raise the rents on roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments across the city. This mostly falls within the mayor’s jurisdiction: Rent hikes (or freezes) are decided by the Rent Guidelines Board, whose nine members are appointed by the mayor. And if elected mayor in November, Mamdani can appoint members to the board who pledge to freeze the rent.
As dramatic as the negative response has been, this isn’t exactly a novel idea. In just the past decade — during Bill de Blasio’s tenure as the city’s mayor — the board froze the rent on three occasions: in 2015, 2016, and in 2020. Mamdani’s proposal also doesn’t mean that a rent freeze will be permanent. The idea is to hold rents where they are to give tenants a chance to catch up to the rising cost of living.
2. City-owned grocery stores
Mamdani’s suggestion of city-owned grocery stores has irked some entrepreneurs to the point that one supermarket mogul threatened to close down all of his stores if Mamdani becomes mayor. The rationale behind this proposal is that a publicly owned grocery store would make food more affordable. The store wouldn’t have to worry about making a profit or paying rent, and those savings would be passed onto consumers by lowering the price of goods.
Realistically, this is unlikely to have a significant impact on grocery prices across the city. But Mamdani’s plan is also a means to address some of the city’s food deserts, where there aren’t enough grocery stores to serve residents. And the reality is that public-owned stores aren’t exactly new, let alone a threat. Several states, from Alabama to Virginia, have publicly owned liquor stores — a product of the post-Prohibition period where states took more control over the sale and distribution of alcohol — and boast of their success.
Mamdani’s proposal for publicly owned grocery stores is also far more rational and modest than the state-monopoly model of liquor stores: He’s merely proposing a pilot program of just five city-owned grocery stores — one in each borough — in a sea of some 15,000 privately owned grocery stores. If the pilot program succeeds and satisfies New Yorkers’ needs, then it could be expanded.
3. Fare-free buses
One of Mamdani’s signature wins as a New York State Assembly member was his push for a fare-free bus pilot on five lines in New York City. As mayor, he promises to expand fare-free buses across the city to make public transit more accessible. It’s also good environmental policy that helps alleviate traffic because it encourages people to ditch their cars and ride the bus instead.
According to an article by Mamdani and his colleague in the state legislature, in New York City, the lines included in the fare-free bus pilot showed an increase in ridership across the board, and of the new riders those lines lured, the highest share was among people making less than $28,000 a year.
His fare-free proposal is packaged with a commitment to invest in improving infrastructure — like building more dedicated lanes — to make bus trips more efficient. And if making buses free makes people more likely to get out of cars and ride public transit instead, then that is a worthwhile investment.
You can read Abdallah's full piece here.
