Is Mamdani’s New York sustainable?

Zohran Mamdani’s appointment as the mayor of New York, has ushered in a new era for NYC, with policies such as building 200,000 units of affordable housing, raising the cities’ minimum wage to $30 by 2030, and actually taxing the rich.

His social media first approach has seen its success by his popularity not only rising in NYC, but across the world – an impressive feat to have achieved rapidly over two years. Zohran Mamdani, being charismatic, authentic and progressive in his approach has led him to become increasingly popular with the city’s population. Not only has it allowed him to connect with young voters and voters from under-represented backgrounds, but it has also spread his name to the international audience.

Part of Mamdani’s popularity has stemmed from proactively listening to the complaints of New York’s residents and frequently showing what he’s done to combat issues that were brought up. One such case was carrying out a pothole purge in New York City – pothole complaints were at an all-time high after the city’s aging infrastructure was hit by a gruelling winter. NYC’s Department of Transportation crews had filled 8,000 potholes within a day, and the mayor himself filled the city’s 100,000th pothole on Olympia Boulevard on Staten Island.

However, critics question whether his methods of fixing problems is sustainable or focuses too much on the short term

Mamdani is being criticised for centering his actions on providing quick, practical relief instead of building agendas with the intent of improving NYC in the long run. However, in my opinion, short-term fixes are a fundamental step in gaining traction and building up a reputation as a mayor before investing into such goals. A politician can be as idealistic with their pledges as they want, but without quick action to back it up, they have no credibility and hence no support for their policies in the long run. For example, Keir Starmer struggled with upholding his pledges, and his popularity rapidly declined to the point where he resigned as PM. His lack of action was a reason for his downfall.

So far, Mamdani has been in office about 200 days and has achieved several milestones that align with his initial pledges: such as securing $1.2 billion for universal childcare, and winning $34 million for tenants, states the official site for the office of the mayor. Having a politician uphold what they’ve initially pledged is rare, so I don’t think being critical of them providing that tangible relief builds the foundation for public trust and for investing in further reforms for the system.

As reported on The City Reporter, Mamdani has made the claim that he has managed to close NYC’s $12 billion budget gap for the next two fiscal years, without raising property taxes, dipping into reserves or cutting services. However, TIME states that the plan relies heavily on state aid and delayed pension payments, raising a question to whether the city has solved its fiscal problems or simply delayed them. To see if this is possible to maintain, let’s take a closer look at Mamdani’s strategy.

According to TIME, most of the budget gap was closed with $7.6 billion in state aid, provided with the help of NYC governor Kathy Hochul. Mamdani had also said that an addition of projected $1.77 billion was saved by reducing unnecessary overtime costs. Various policies have been put into action to close the budget gap, one of them being the act of delaying pension payments.

By delaying paying into NYC’s pension funds, Mamdani claimed an approximate amount of $1.6 billion could be saved in the upcoming fiscal year

However, stretching out the pension repayment schedule simply extends the problem – hence we would have to look at Mamdani’s other strategies that work with this in tandem.

The mayor has proposed to implement a Pied-à-terre tax, which states that owners with residences valued above $5 million would pay an additional annual tax ranging from 0.5% to 4% of the property’s market value on top of existing property taxes. Although details of this proposal, such as how to evaluate property value and how the tax would be implemented, it would be a great help to closing that budget gap if carried out properly.

Mamdani has so far achieved a lot within a short time frame. As NYC’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, he has already delivered on his promises in a short time and built a rapport around him that is rare to witness within politicians. There is good reason for NYC’s citizens to place trust in Mamdani and be hopeful about his policies.