New Maps

Zohran Mamdani, between “sewer socialism” and the right to the city.

The confetti has fallen. The celebration hangovers have faded. Now the problems and realities of power come into focus, the excitement for a new future faces the inertia of history. It is not a sure thing that Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, but it is more likely than the other options.

Eric Adams is simply too bogged down with scandal and corruption; the political establishment has abandoned him. Andrew Cuomo’s shames follow him around like a cursed shadow. His recently-confirmed independent campaign will be shambolic at best. Real estate moguls and the like will do what they can to prevent Mamdani’s election. The momentum is against them.

We should not for a second dismiss the significance of “Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York City.” The largest city in the United States – a global economic hub, a collision point for hundreds of languages, backgrounds, and cultures – governed by a democratic socialist, and a young Muslim to boot.

In the context of Donald Trump’s America, this will be a significant shift in the political calculus. The administration is, predictably, already putting him in its sights. If and when he wins in November, this will intensify. The possibilities will grow. So will the pitfalls.

The global imagination holds a very particular place for New York. In many ways (for better or worse, fairly or unfairly), it has come to be regarded as not just the archetypal American city, but the platonic ideal of the city. As such, whatever contradictions New York stumbles over tend to be encountered by others. The philosophies of small chaos Jane Jacobs lauded to counter the authoritarian influence of Robert Moses in the 1950s are twisted back around into justifications for displacement. Walkable neighborhoods, quiet streets, and the small business as artisanal endeavor become synonymous with gentrification. When Broken Windows policing became the go-to for American cities, it was only after Giuliani had workshopped it in the poorer neighborhoods of New York.

In keeping with this, today’s New York bears the marks of late-late capitalism in spades. To walk through Harlem, Astoria, Flatbush, or the South Bronx is to see vibrant, multiracial, working-class communities sliced through by aloof, homogenizing affluence. Expensive condos bear down on bodegas. Apartment buildings are filled with families whose faces are used to attract middle-class liberals to the area, who will in turn come to resent the very presence of the humbler, more long-time residents.

We are, inevitably, obligated to imagine a New York where these residents – nurses, transit workers, teachers, retail employees, street vendors, hustlers, homemakers – are front and center. Not just in terms of visibility, but in terms of the decisions that shape daily life in one of the world’s central cities. A Mamdani victory does not, to be clear, signal the start of the New York Commune, but it does demand we ask questions about the socialist city. At stake in this moment isn’t just the political fortunes of Zohran Mamdani, the future of the left or New York City, but the ability of a socialist project to provide a concrete, radically democratic vision for American cities.

Nobody is by now surprised that this prospect is making the Democratic establishment anxious. It is sadly predictable that the likes of Bill Ackman are pouring barges of cash into sinking Mamdani’s campaign. Almost as predictable as Bret Stephens’ New York Times op-ed “Mamdani for Mayor (if You Want to Help the Republicans).” There’s not much to say about this one – if only because its talking points are so tired by now – but it is worth pointing out how much of it comes off like a threat: the worn tropes of a crime-ridden, unlivable city wielded to whip votes for the same people currently making it unlivable. “Turns out, socialism works no better in Brooklyn than it does in Havana,” writes Stephens. This, dear readers, is a man salivating for a trade embargo on Bed-Stuy.

Far more useful is the amount of Mamdani supporters now interrogating challenges and obstacles of socialist governance, examining the strengths and viabilities of his platform, trying to pick out the places where it might get into trouble. There is an encouraging tone of yes, and… in most of this analysis, seemingly signaling that what this particular democratic socialist says about a future New York is far from the last word.

Brian Callaci’s and Osman Keshawarz’s Jacobin piece is spot-on in pointing out that rent freezes – a key component in Mamdani’s platform – are an effective way to keep people in their homes, but only if they are made one part of a larger vision of social and public housing that undermines private developers.

Ross Barkan (whose 2018 campaign for New York State Senate was managed by Mamdani) is also attempting to think ahead in last week’s Times op-ed. It’s a useful piece, though frustrating at times. Not because of what it says necessarily, but what it doesn’t.

It is old Marxist hat to say that this frustration stems from Barkan’s pragmatism. But there are two kinds of pragmatism. One is the kind that disingenuously throws up its hands and asks what can I do? while in fact not even trying. The other, if borne of any sincerity, is an impatient, uncomfortable sort of pragmatism. The kind that sees every stopping point as one in a series of strategic battles of position, a springboard toward bolder and more radical initiatives.