After New York City’s race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from state assembly member into one of the world’s most prominent progressive voices, intense debate swirled over the ideas at the heart of his campaign.
His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal child care and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive.
But some have hit back, highlighting the quirk of geography that underpins some of this view. “He promised things that Europeans take for granted, but Americans are told are impossible,” said Dutch environmentalist and former government advisor Alexander Verbeek in the wake of Tuesday’s election.
Verbeek backed this with a comment he had overheard in an Oslo café, in which Mamdani was described as an American politician who “finally” sounded normal.
yeah. the better way is city-built public housing. the city can either rent out or sell the apartments to people who personally need them, both work fine.
this way, you actually increase the amount of housing on the market, and also the city-built houses are typically rented out at-cost, instead of for-profit, which makes them a noticeable bit cheaper than housing provided by big private investors.
Agreed. City run housing should run at a low profit, so more city owned housing can be built with it.
Vienna does something like it, and it works well.