Zohran Mamdani's policies will (mostly) not bring abundance to NYC

Progressive ideas still try to defy economic realities.

Photo by Bingjiefu He via Wikimedia Commons

If you believe the prediction markets, Zohran Mamdani has zoomed into the lead in the Democratic primary for the NYC mayoral race:

Source: Polymarket

Mamdani is a young, handsome, charismatic candidate. He seems to genuinely love and care about his city, and he makes excellent campaign videos:

On the downside, Mamdani has defended the slogan “globalize the intifada”. I’m not happy that this sort of leftism has been mainstreamed in America. Zohran’s claim that the word “intifada” refers to a peaceful struggle, rather than a violent one, is pretty obviously dishonest. This kind of rhetoric hasn’t helped the Palestinian people, but I think it has probably helped to encourage a wave of violent attacks against Jews across America.

That’s bad. But I also think it’s worth setting aside Mamdani’s culture-war commitments for a minute and taking a careful look at his economic policy ideas. They probably represent the future of progressive politics in America, and they have garnered cautious praise and approval from people I respect, like Derek Thompson. In his inaugural Substack post, Derek writes:

Mamdani told Pod Save America that despite the “simplified and caricatured” conversation around the book, “Abundance is really interesting.” In a recent speech, he hailed an “agenda of abundance.”

Mamdani and I do not agree about many things, including but not limited to: housing policy, education policy, the role of public sector unions in raising the cost of urban-transit construction, and the need for significantly higher levels of local and state spending in New York. But we agree that politicians who seek to create more government functions had damn well better prove that the government can function, in the first place. “As someone who is very passionate about public goods, about public service, I think that we on the left have to be equally passionate about public excellence,” Mamdani told me. “One of the most compelling things that I think abundance has brought into the larger conversation is how we can make government more effective, how we can actually deliver on the very ideas that we are so passionate about.” As we spoke about his plans to prove government excellence, the words that kept coming up were outcomes, efficiency, and an openness to government innovation—all themes of the book. “I clearly have ideas and politics, but ultimately beyond all of those things, I care most about outcomes,” he said. “The way that I would approach running the city is to be wedded to outcomes, not wedded to the means by which we get to those outcomes.”…

[M]y conversation with Mamdani made me optimistic…A left-populist leader who removes barriers to physical-world construction to make it easier to build public goods doesn’t transform into a nefarious neoliberal. They just become a better populist leader. A Democratic Socialist mayor who takes a page from Jersey City and makes it easier and faster for private developers to add housing units won’t be a traitor to the middle class. They’ll simply be a better mayor.

Derek’s “conversation with Mamdani” refers to when Zohran came on his podcast a couple of days ago:

I’m also encouraged by this shift in rhetoric. It’s a good sign, and it also shows that the knee-jerk attacks on Abundance are falling flat. The idea of an efficient, effective government that creates good outcomes for citizens has to be core to any successful big-government progressive movement, and it’s good to see rising stars of the left recognize that.

But simply saying words like “outcomes” and “efficiency” does not make it so. You have to have policies that actually get you the outcomes you want. We don’t want progressives to end up like Donald Trump, whose goal of reviving American manufacturing was a good one, but whose tariff policy is accelerating America’s deindustrialization instead.

Zohran’s main economic policy ideas include:

• Constructing 200,000 units of housing over 10 years

• A rent freeze for all rent-stabilized apartments in NYC

• Creating city-owned grocery stores

• Universal free child care throughout the city

• Making all city buses free to ride

• Raising the corporate income tax, and raising the personal income tax on New Yorkers making over $1M a year

Some of these ideas are just bad. Zohran’s housing policy — the thing that has most excited centrist liberals — would actually reduce housing supply from its already low level. His plan for city-run grocery stores would cost a lot, accomplish little, and hurt local businesspeople. On the other hand, his plans for free child care and transit would work, although the cost of free child care would be significant and free buses would have major downsides.

Zohran’s housing plans are insufficient, and rent control is bad

New York City badly needs new housing. Traditionally, the city builds even less housing than its European peers, and far less than a city like Tokyo:

Source: James Gleeson

Zohran seems to want to improve on this dismal record. This is from his campaign website:

As Mayor, Zohran will put our public dollars to work and triple the City’s production of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes – constructing 200,000 new units over the next 10 years. Any 100% affordable development gets fast-tracked: no more pointless delays. And Zohran will fully staff our City’s housing agencies so we can actually get the work done.

Expedited permitting for “affordable” (i.e. artificially cheap) housing and increased staffing for city housing agencies both sound like great ideas. But the actual number Zohran suggests here is pretty underwhelming. 200,000 new units over 10 years might sound like a big number, but in fact it’s slightly slower than the pace of housing construction in the mid to late 2010s: