Free daycare and kindergartens, free buses, shops for people, more social housing and a rent freeze: how realistic are these promises of the new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani?
Populist, communist, radical: the labels that stick to the newly elected mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, and his platform are more colorful and dynamic than even the dispute over the way his first name is spelled and pronounced.
Mamdani managed to convince not only over 50% of voters in New York to support him, but also mobilized over 100,000 volunteers - a record number even for the largest city in USA.
How did he manage to do it? With an active, dynamic and very well-defined presence on social media, sharp and radical promises for policies that made many people's hair stand on end, as well as an unquestioning presence in debates.
To the criticism of his competitor Andrew Cuomo that he did not have enough experience, he replied: "What I lack in experience, I make up for in integrity, and what you lack in integrity, you could never make up for in experience."
But integrity is far from enough for him to realize his ideas. How radical are they? Let's look at five key promises.
Rent freeze
There is nothing particularly radical about this measure. In 2020, Berlin made a similar decision, but it was declared unconstitutional in 2021.
With Mamdani, the risk of such a development is small, since this measure was imposed in New York and by his predecessors. He can easily make this decision on his first day as mayor.
With half of New Yorkers paying over 30% of their income for rent, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of city residents will immediately feel some relief. At least because they will not be afraid that their expenses will continue to grow. And the Berlin example has shown that while such a rent ceiling was in effect, citizens were more open to new housing projects. This ties into another of Mamdani's promises: to build more housing.
More housing for those in need
Mamdani wants to build 200,000 new units that are rent-regulated and affordable for those in need. That goal is slightly higher than the 185,000 new multifamily units built in the city from 2010 to 2020. But it's far from certain that he'll meet the needs of New Yorkers. Estimates put the city's homeless population at between 100,000 and 300,000.
The problem with Mamdani's policies is that the rent freeze, even if it doesn't apply to new construction, could scare off some developers. How the new mayor balances the interests of businesses and citizens is key. But as Roger Carma notes in The Atlantic: “The housing crisis has been growing for years, and political leaders have failed to find the solutions needed to overcome it. If rent control offers a way out of this impasse, it may be worth the risk.”
Community stores
The first “people’s stores” are also expected to open in Bulgaria very soon, so this concept is well-known to us.
Mamdani wants to open at least one “people’s store” in each of New York’s five boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Given that 25% of New Yorkers live in poverty, these stores could at least slightly improve their lives, although this measure is considered non-market. Similar stores are already available in other US states, from Georgia to Illinois.
Free buses
For Europeans, Tallinn is the first association that comes to mind when someone says "free public transport". The Estonian capital introduced it in 2013, and studies show that the measure increased public transport use by 14% in just one year. French cities such as Montpellier and Dunkirk have followed Tallinn's example.
However, no city as large as New York has ever introduced such a measure. It has been part of the debate since 2020, when buses were free for a certain period of time due to the pandemic. A 2024 study showed that 50% of bus passengers in the city that never sleeps do not pay their fare. Mamdani, who was still a city councilor at the time, said the reason for this is that they cannot afford it. That's why he promised to make buses free. But to do that, he would need to raise $800 million a year, which he said is easily achievable for a city with a budget of over $100 billion.
To generate this money, he wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 11.5% and charge an additional 2% to every New Yorker who earns more than $1 million a year. Mamdani faces several other challenges: to implement his plan, he needs the approval of local authorities, the governor and the MTA, the public company responsible for New York's transportation.
Free childcare
Mamdani has promised to provide free childcare for children between the ages of six weeks and five years. This is also the case in most Scandinavian countries, with a few exceptions. In Berlin, daily childcare is guaranteed from their first birthday until they start school. The program of the newly elected mayor of New York is actually an expansion of existing measures to support families in need.
Mamdani also plans to provide young parents with a free baby basket containing items such as diapers, baby wipes, nursing pads, diapers and books. In Finland, the baby basket has been a universal acquisition since 1949 and has since been adopted by nearly 100 programs in 60 countries around the world, notes "The Guardian".
The richest city in the world, home to Wall Street and 123 billionaires, has a mayor who calls himself a "democratic socialist". Whether he will implement his ideas or they will fail, and New York will lose some of the people who guarantee its wealth, remains to be seen.
However, the first signals are positive. Many of the billionaires who invested heavily in supporting Mandani's opponents have now reached out to him and sought dialogue. "He's expressing a message that is real - that we live in two different cities, almost in a Dickensian sense," said crypto investor Mike Novogratz.
If Mamdani can truly bridge the gap between these two worlds, it would be the biggest victory for the movement started by Bernie Sanders. And a direct horizon for progressive left candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.