So NYC Mayoral race is looking interesting with Andrew Cuomo making a come back and leading in the polls but an up and comer I am seeing also is Zohran Mamdani.
A few of the policies he has seem… interesting. Very radical and I can see the premise but I am worried they have some very negative unforeseen consequences. For instance, he is campaigning on creating a gov owned grocery chain that would not be focused on profitability, not have to pay taxes or fees, and not pay rent. While on paper this sounds amazing for combatting food deserts, I am wondering what effect this would have on the small mom and Pop grocery chains and Bodegas that make up NYC? How could a small chain possibly compete with a place that doesn’t even pay rent? I feel this would inadvertently kill all but the luxury and massive corporate stores, ironically BENEFITTING the Billion dollar corporations and hurting the lower and middle class. It reminds me of this issue I saw in Africa where Americans were flooding them with free shoes from Charity but those free shoes inadvertently destroyed any shoe makers and shoe seller businesses as they could never compete with free.
The other policy I am concerned about is the free public transit. In theory it sounds amazing but the MTA is already running at a massive loss… and it is struggling to keep up with maintenance of its vehicles and tunnels. What would happen if you removed the funding they got from bus fairs? How would they survive?
So what do you guys think? Do you like his ideas or do you think they feel… half baked?
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The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
So NYC Mayoral race is looking interesting with Andrew Cuomo making a come back and leading in the polls but an up and comer I am seeing also is Zohran Mamdani.
A few of the policies he has seem… interesting. Very radical and I can see the premise but I am worried they have some very negative unforeseen consequences. For instance, he is campaigning on creating a gov owned grocery chain that would not be focused on profitability, not have to pay taxes or fees, and not pay rent. While on paper this sounds amazing for combatting food deserts, I am wondering what effect this would have on the small mom and Pop grocery chains and Bodegas that make up NYC? How could a small chain possibly compete with a place that doesn’t even pay rent? I feel this would inadvertently kill all but the luxury and massive corporate stores, ironically BENEFITTING the Billion dollar corporations and hurting the lower and middle class. It reminds me of this issue I saw in Africa where Americans were flooding them with free shoes from Charity but those free shoes inadvertently destroyed any shoe makers and shoe seller businesses as they could never compete with free.
The other policy I am concerned about is the free public transit. In theory it sounds amazing but the MTA is already running at a massive loss… and it is struggling to keep up with maintenance of its vehicles and tunnels. What would happen if you removed the funding they got from bus fairs? How would they survive?
So what do you guys think? Do you like his ideas or do you think they feel… half baked?
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His proposals are unworkable pie in the sky.
I think he’s probably the best choice for mayor out of the options presented.
I also think you’re being disingenuous about his policies. Even if I disagree with some aspects of them.
>Thoughts on the NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani?
I prefer Zellnor Myrie, which is odd, because they both…
They have so much in common!
>The other policy I am concerned about is the free public transit.
A subject where I agree with Matt Yglesias:
>…Transit Center reports that “even low-income bus riders rate fares as less important to address than frequency of service, crowding, safety, and reliability.”
>…
>Long story short, I think governments should be willing to spend more money on their bus systems. But rather than mandating lower fares, politicians should give the agencies a clear mandate to increase ridership, and agencies should then pursue that mandate in technically rigorous ways.
There are simply better ways to spend the money that would go to making transit free.
I like him, will rank him #1. some of his ideas are pretty hard to pull off, but I at least agree with them as goals. things like “he’s so radical, he wants free public transit” are such goofy critiques compared to the problems with Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace after sexually harassing and retaliating against numerous women, not to mention the covid deaths coverup.
I’ll rank him because of the UAW endorsement, but I agree that his proposals aren’t feasible.
Idk if he’s going to win, but he’s a great campaigner (going from no name recognition to 2nd in polling behind Andrew Cuomo is no joke) and frankly there’s a lot on that front Dems of all stripes could learn about.
His policies are a starting point for negotiations (that’s frankly how all candidates running for exceutive office advocating for things that require the legislative branch’s approval should be seen), city council will negotiate down from there.
It’s the same way why I think had Bernie won in 2016/2020, we would have gotten a public option, negotiating down from M4A.
At this point, if I lived in NYC, I would be willing to vote for almost anyone polling well if they aren’t fucking Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo.
I can’t find the quote at this point, but I recall seeing a snarky comment on Twitter that went something along the lines of, “New Yorkers want someone who’s tough on crime and who’s willing to assault as many women as necessary to achieve that goal.”
Free public transit has worked well in KC
I like that someone is at least shaking things up and getting people to take some more left wing proposals seriously.
I share your concern about 2nd order effects on bodegas, etc. I’d prefer to see a scheme that worked through them vs competed with them. It’d be neat if we could remove the stigma of food stamps, expand that to be more universal, and then similar to medicare use the bargaining power to place some requirements on retailers to have a variety of options not just junk food.
If free transit makes sense anywhere in the US it’s definitely in NYC.
Looking at it as a business that needs to break even is entirely mistaken.
Let’s consider metro areas that are infamous for their sprawl, like LA or DFW. We spend an absolute fucking shit ton on paving roads, maintaining street lights, intersection signals, etc. Yet curiously no one ever asks “how will the road network pay for itself?” We don’t generally charge tolls for using car centric infrastructure.
There’s absolutely no reason to hold public transit to a different standard. Just fucking pay for it with taxes. And at the density you see within NYC, it’s just a no brainer. I mean thinking you can just drive to a destination in manhattan and have no traffic and a free parking spot available to you is clearly just nonsense. NYC needs transportation infrastructure that suits the reality of its geometry.
And besides, fares are a small component of the balance sheet of most transit orgs.
If making it free is a step too far for broad political appeal, then I’d say make it as cheap as possible instead. $2 for a 24 hour day pass, $20 for a monthly pass.
I’m in Portland, a city known for being contrarian vs most US metro areas when it comes to transit, and I’ve supported making the system here free for decades. Just do it. It’s a debated topic, but the best evidence is we barely break even on the cost of enforcing fares vs the revenue they bring in. So why not just stop? Hell just with buses not having to check people’s fares would be a non trivial speedup at stops.
For other US cities that don’t quite have the same density or the same transit friendly design, I’d like to at least see “park and ride” infrastructure. Make it easy for people coming into the city core to park for free at a transit station and hop on a bus or train.
His housing policies are utter nonsense but he seems like a nice guy.
Mamdani seems like a pretty good option to me. Certainly better than Cuomo or Adams. I’m not on board with making transit free, and I think he’s got a lot of weird populist stuff going on, but he’s also more progressive on zoning and limiting cars in the city than Cuomo or Adams, which are both good.