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Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

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Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#141

Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls in markets will be an interesting real-time political experiment. When the inevitable unintended outcomes become to emerge who will be blamed? https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/apart... https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform Quoting Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winner and liberal columnist at the NYT). "The analysi…

The Atlantic had a good article on this and how it isn't the doom and gloom you lay out above: https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/11/mamdani-... As some of the replies note, it has been rather successful and popular in other cities like Berlin.

Rent control is always initially popular with the people who are already in apartments. But it is longer term effects on supply and quality that are corrosive.

An alternative is Austin:

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/22/austin-texas-rents-f...

"Austin rents have fallen for nearly two years. Here’s why.

Austin rents have tumbled for 19 straight months, data from Zillow show. The typical asking rent in the capital city sat at $1,645 as of December, according to Zillow — above where rents stood prior to the pandemic but below where they peaked amid the region’s red-hot growth.

Surrounding suburbs like Round Rock, Pflugerville and Georgetown, which saw rents grow by double-digit percentages amid the region’s pandemic boom, also have seen declining rents. Rents aren’t falling as quickly as they rose during the pandemic run-up in costs, but there are few places in the Austin region where rents didn’t fall sometime in the last year.

The chief reason behind Austin’s falling rents, real estate experts and housing advocates said, is a massive apartment building boom unmatched by any other major city in Texas or in the rest of the country. Apartment builders in the Austin area kicked into overdrive during the pandemic, resulting in tens of thousands of new apartments hitting the market."

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#143

I'm noticing that this election result has made a lot of people I know really hopeful. It's apparent that many people are fed up with the status quo so they're pushing towards more experimental candidates. If anyone here is well-read on his policies and they have specific opinions I'd love to hear what you think. Do you think Zohran will be successful with his agenda or will he get blocked by pushback from other poli…

The biggest takeaway to me is how ridiculous it is that the US considers Mamdani somehow "experimental" or even radical.

His campaign revolves around three policies:

1. Universal Child Care 2. Fast and Free Busses 3. Freezing Rent for certain Rent Controlled Units

In any other context these would be policies that basically every citizen, except for a handful of people making buttloads of money off the privatization of childcare, housing, and transportation would support, yet somehow in the USA this is "radical". Somehow a candidate finally proposing positive policies that directly benefit citizens is a radical socialist who needs to be stopped and we all need to vote for the disgraced former governor who resigned after killing seniors during covid and groping his employees. Even here on HN where people are generally well educated you have people arguing. that Mamdani will somehow be the ruin of new york.

Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#144

Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls in markets will be an interesting real-time political experiment. When the inevitable unintended outcomes become to emerge who will be blamed? https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/apart... https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform Quoting Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winner and liberal columnist at the NYT). "The analysi…

How does he explain Tokyo then ?

Lax zoning regulations, relatively cheap labor, low cost of materials, and depreciating home values incentivize building new real estate. That is what separates Tokyo from New York City.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#145

Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls in markets will be an interesting real-time political experiment. When the inevitable unintended outcomes become to emerge who will be blamed? https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/apart... https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform Quoting Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winner and liberal columnist at the NYT). "The analysi…

As if Cuomo was some economic genius. Look at all his campaign material - they were abject brain dead character smears and racism. If he was truly just trying to win by any means to supposedly save New Yorkers from economic disaster, he was a Machiavellian of the highest degree.

He used Orthodox Jewish communities with top down leaders as a core machine style voting bloc. The whole community turns out and did what the head guy says, just like the old Tammany Hall. I’m sure plenty of people “moved” from their upstate town back to Brooklyn. Usually the old style conservative Catholics vote for him too. (Oddly enough as his divorce and “living in sin” was scandalous)

The issue is that the machine stuff only works when nobody is amped up. And his broader audience is both dying off and angry at the Trump nonsense. The population is shifting, and south asian, Middle Eastern and other, less traditionally powerful blocs are voting now and Zohran activated them. That’s why the dog whistles were so important - he needed to get more republicans and Archie bunker types to turn out.

It’s kind of sad, Cuomo with the right people restraining him is a force. But his enemy is himself.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development. “In a 2022 paper, the political scientists Anselm Hager, Hanno Hilbig, and Robert Vief used the introduction of a 2019 rent-control law in Berlin to study how access to rent-con…

My understanding is that he is proposing a 4 year freeze on about 1 million units. https://www.curbed.com/article/zohran-mamdani-housing-rent-f... archive: https://archive.ph/hnK4Q "The 34-year-old democratic socialist’s pledge for a four-year pause on any increases on the city’s 1 million or so stabilized units, effectively giving a reprieve to about 2 million stabilized tenants, was at the center of his campaign" I…

> 34-year-old democratic socialist’s pledge for a four-year pause on any increases on the city’s 1 million or so stabilized units

Out of 3.7mm [1].

> not directly familiar with Berlin

Not comparable. Berlin froze rents “on more than 1.5 million” apartments in 2020 [2] out of about 2mm. 25% versus 75%.

Also, Berlin’s politicians didn’t propose a construction agenda. Mamdani has. (“New York City voters on Tuesday delivered a strong message in support of building more housing, passing three proposals that pitted City Hall against the City Council in an effort to rewrite decades-old development rules” [4].)

[1] https://www.nyc.gov/content/tenantprotection/pages/fast-fact...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/world/europe/berlin-gentr...

[3] https://www.berlin.de/en/news/8283996-5559700-housing-stock-...

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/nyregion/nyc-ballot-measu...

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#149
post #73

You guys have it all wrong. There was only one candidate for the dem party, Here's the list: 1) Cuomo. Sexpest who has been accused by many women of some pretty shitty stuff. Also a member of a multi-generational dynasty, which is not good. 2) Mayor Adams. Federally indicted by the Feds. They have a 99% conviction rate. Not because they're corrupt, but because they only go after people who have dome some really egreg…

The fact that I was seeing Sliwa favourably speaks to the candidate quality in this race. > No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young Stupid stuff he credibly disavowed. I’m still blown away that after De Blasio he was the only one, when asked a foreign policy question, who said he’d put city priorities first.

It is unfortunate that, after the Spanish Inquisition, Jewish refugees were welcome in Istanbul, but the current receptivity is so much colder.

This is exactly the point where the historic tolerance of the middle east is most direly needed, but common ground in so many contexts is absent.

I hope that we can put ourselves back together. We've seen the consequences this year of its lack.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#150
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda feel Obama is more of a Trojan horse. It was not he tried and failed to get what he campaigned for implemented, it was more like he did a U turn after he got elected. e.g. he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical". I hope the same doesn't happen with Zohran. If he was going to fail after all, I wish that will at least be after he had fought as hard as h…

> he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical" ACA was the most radical package that could have passed, and it still cost Democrats the Congress. This line of argument reminds of the folks who complained about Sinema and Manchin. You know what we’d have with a few more Sinemas and Manchins in the party right now? A majority. The bill that passes is better than the…

> The bill that passes is better than the ideal that doesn’t.

For your resume, sure.

Sometimes reform only works when you fully commit and if half the country isn't on board, it's not better to pass some mutilated and watered down version.

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