Barring a miracle, New York state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, will be elected mayor of New York City today. The only question appears to be how much damage he will cause the city and the Democratic Party before his term ends. We advise the city’s voters not to put it to the test.
Mamdani’s signature proposal, a freeze on rents, has a long track record of failure everywhere it has been tried before, including in New York City. Faced with caps on revenue, landlords don’t spend money on existing housing, and, unmaintained, it deteriorates in condition and availability, so rents rise for the shrinking stock of real estate that is left. Mamdani has promised to build 200,000 new rent-stabilized housing units over the next 10 years, but construction will be tied up in the same environmental and union permitting machine that has made construction nearly impossible in every blue city in the nation. The end results will be millions of wasted dollars, fewer homes, and higher rents for everyone.
