New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently unveiled a map of the city’s “Immigrant Enclaves,” and the backlash was immediate. The map celebrated dozens of neighborhoods, from Little Palestine and Little Pakistan to Little Yemen and Koreatown, but it ignored iconic Italian, Irish, and Jewish communities that have long defined New York’s immigrant story.

The omissions were widely denounced as cultural erasure. That’s a big strike against Mamdani because a key hallmark of governing as a mayor is signaling that everyone belongs. When entire communities conclude they have been written out of a city’s identity, they lose trust in those leading it.