Photograph: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Pictures
The key concern of the loudest die-hard critics of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will not be that he’ll fail as the town’s chief however that he has an excellent likelihood of succeeding. If the brand new administration demonstrates it may ship on its promise to decrease the price of residing whereas managing our metropolis effectively and maintaining the streets protected, it should turn into clear that the fearmongers who’ve been screaming warnings a couple of coming municipal apocalypse had been peddling nonsense all alongside.
We had practically a yr of dialogue and debate earlier than voters gave the go-head to Mamdani’s core 4 guarantees: freeze the hire, broaden early schooling, make buses quick and free, and open one government-owned grocery retailer in every borough to assist ease New York’s endemic starvation downside. “The residents of the town have spoken, and it’s been very clear, they usually’ve accomplished it in wonderful numbers, and their response to the Mamdani marketing campaign is that this has to occur,” Dean Fuleihan, a veteran authorities supervisor who might be Mamdani’s first deputy mayor, informed me. “So I don’t see it as a query of alternative.”
Fuliehan additionally factors out that naysayers have been unsuitable earlier than. “You and I’ve really witnessed many instances when somebody mentioned or commented, ‘Can’t be accomplished,’ after which three months later, it will get accomplished,” he mentioned. “I used to be a part of [creating] common pre-Okay with Mayor de Blasio, and all people mentioned it couldn’t occur. Couldn’t occur within the schooling division; it could take 5 years. The then-governor of New York mentioned, ‘Not possible. Begin with a pilot.’ And it occurred in two years.”
Fuliehan’s clean confidence, the product of a long time spent in state and native authorities, stands in distinction to the sky-is-falling prognostication of many New York leaders, who should know higher. “If the town of New York goes socialist, I’ll positively shut, or promote, or transfer or franchise the Gristedes places,” billionaire John Catsimatidis, the proprietor of the Gristedes chain, informed Fox Enterprise.
That’s an absurd overreaction to Mamdani’s proposal to open 5 government-owned grocery shops in so-called meals deserts. An estimated 1.8 million New Yorkers already depend on Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) advantages, together with 40 p.c of Bronx residents, and greater than 500 soup kitchens and pantries across the metropolis additionally attempt to fill the hole. Mamdani’s proposal to open one outlet in every borough – basically, 5 extra meals pantries – will under no circumstances have an effect on the income or losses of Castsimatidis’s 17 supermarkets.
“I like New York. I’ll by no means transfer from New York, however there’s a number of different folks that may and are leaving New York,” Neil Blumenthal, the founder and CEO of the Warby Parker eyeglasses empire, informed the Free Press. “Then there are others that may by no means even turn into New Yorkers as a result of the price of residing is simply too excessive. We’re one election away from turning into San Francisco.”
One other anxious wealthy man, billionaire Invoice Ackman, who has made one laughably unsuitable name after one other about New York politics this yr, predicted earlier than the election that “if Mamdani turns into the mayor of New York, you’re going to see the flight of companies from New York. Many of the companies that function in New York Metropolis within the monetary sector are extremely transportable.”
Particular person households or firms might pull up stakes, the best way Ken Giffien moved the monetary large Citadel from Chicago to Miami and Elon Musk shifted Tesla’s headquarters from California to Texas, however instances like these run counter to broader information displaying that the wealthy, as a gaggle, usually don’t transfer across the nation chasing low income-tax charges. An exhaustive 2016 examine by researchers at Stanford College and the U.S. Treasury Division tracked the tax information and actions of each millionaire in America for 13 years and concluded, “Millionaires usually are not very cellular and truly have decrease migration charges than the final inhabitants. That is partly as a result of household duties and enterprise possession are greater amongst prime income-earners, which embeds people of their native areas.” Extra to the purpose, the examine says, “their elite revenue itself embeds them in place: millionaires usually are not trying to find financial alternative — they’ve discovered it.”
An identical examine by the Fiscal Coverage Institute discovered that 2,400 millionaire households moved out of New York through the pandemic years of 2020 to 2023 — however the state gained 17,500 millionaire households over the identical interval. “Excessive earners don’t transfer in response to tax will increase,” the examine discovered. “Out-migration for these most impacted by latest efficient tax will increase (in 2017 and 2021) didn’t enhance considerably in response to the tax will increase.”
And if we’re explicit instances, let’s not neglect that Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, simply lower the ribbon on a brand new $4 billion headquarters on Park Avenue this yr; Google opened a brand new $2.1 billion headquarters final yr. They and different big-money companies are staying put as a result of they know that the key of New York’s trillion-dollar annual output is the military of younger, gifted professionals, artists, and scientists who develop up in our metropolis or flock right here from each nook of the globe. Mamdani has promised to assist these people discover their footing in New York, no matter it takes.
“The affordability disaster was prime of thoughts for folk and challenged everybody else within the race to talk to that, and nobody spoke to it in addition to he did,” Mamdani’s marketing campaign supervisor, Maya Handa, informed me. “Persons are sad and individuals are offended, they usually really feel just like the system has screwed them over, and [Mamdani showed] a willingness to actually name that out in an sincere and genuine manner and actually say we shouldn’t be afraid to tax the wealthy, we shouldn’t be afraid to redistribute a few of that wealth so that folks can reside a lifetime of dignity. I simply suppose that message spoke to people.”
That blame-the-rich rhetoric has some elites anxious. New York’s high-earning households, by and huge, work onerous, spend freely, and donate tons of cash to charity. They aren’t used to being criticized by anyone, and positively not by the activated military of pro-Mamdani younger New Yorkers. However they need to get used to it: If Mamdani succeeds, it is going to be extra clear than ever that the town’s public- and private-sector leaders ought to have addressed New York’s affordability disaster lengthy prior to now.
Above all, says Morris Katz, a marketing campaign strategist who served as a senior adviser to Mamdani, New Yorkers ought to cease listening to the doomsayers. “They’re the identical individuals who mentioned in April that he would by no means win a Democratic main, the identical individuals who mentioned 9 months earlier than that, that he won’t ever even be viable, the identical individuals who mentioned it could all crumble in a basic election,” Katz informed me. “Zohran calls for a tradition of excellence. He pursues excellence relentlessly. And it was that tradition that took the marketing campaign from polling at 1 p.c to defeating and toppling a political dynasty. And I feel it’s gonna be that very same tradition of excellence that delivers this agenda in Metropolis Corridor. And it’s going to be a few of those self same folks with egg on their face.”
