Good post! I think though that "is Mamdani a YIMBY?" is asking the wrong question. YIMBY is unlikely to be the type of movement to directly hold power. YIMBY ideas aren't popular in that way. What's going on with Mamdani is IMO what YIMBY victory looks like - politicians taking up the most workable ideas out of enlightened self-interest. Mamdani wants to make housing more affordable, and YIMBY has enough pull at this point that it was natural for him to incorporate some of our ideas alongside more traditional leftist ideas.
Mamdani being unwilling to take a public position on the ballot measures does show that not a lot of politicians are willing to be leaders because too many loud voices have sway in our fragmented media environment. In the past a politician was more than willing to be a leader or stake out a position and lead voters to better outcomes because that is what leaders do. Nowadays there are so many voices and special interest groups with competing interests that make it so tough to operate imo.
Hopefully it won't matter too much since many people are only now, on election day, tuning into the details of the election. I totally forgot there were measures on the ballot at all, but while standing in line for our ballots my wife saw that Mamdani was voting for them so I pretty much voted for them based on that, even though I didn't do proper research.
Mamdani is inheriting a NYC that is about to have huge budget shortfalls and he is likely going to be forced to be an austerity mayor. The only way he will be able to deliver affordability will be through regulatory reform — and his biggest roadblock will be traditional progressives. Feels like a recipe for failure. But we will see.
Also roughly 500k rent-stabilized units are bankrupt or about to be bankrupt so he is going to have to figure out a way to deal with that crisis.
I will note that the NYC-DSA's council members were unanimously in favor of City of Yes, and a majority of the Progressive Caucus of the City Council, especially Hanif and Osse, are arguably the most pro-housing members. A limited set of progressives tied to NIMBY community orgs like Marte will be a problem, but the core impediment to reform in NYC remains the predominantly home owning districts represented by Republicans and moderate Democrats. There is a reason Cuomo has campaigned on "protecting neighborhood character" and why Zohran vote share will likely strongly correlate with vote for 2-5.
Zach is correct. Alliances are weird in NYC and many of the most progressive City Council members have advanced the largest rezonings. But the entire structure of the government has resisted regulatory reform that would lower costs for working class NYers. Mamadani’s video on Halalflation gives me hope he might crack that nut. But the City Council just passed a bill that gives plumbers a monopoly on the installation and disconnecting of all gas stoves in the city… which will raise rents and will lead to insane delays in service.
>and his biggest roadblock will be traditional progressives. Feels like a recipe for failure. But we will see.
I wonder if there's a "only Nixon could go to China" dynamic at work here. It could be Mamdani is more, not less, likely to succeed precisely because he'll have political capital to burn with the NIMBY progressive groups. Kind of just depends on what he actually wants to do
I think that is the hope many have. He doesn't owe the unions a thing, because they all backed Cuomo in the primary. He doesn't owe traditional political clubs a thing. He does have to support his DSA base, but they have been increasingly pragmatic about many things.
But he is going to inherit a mess. I think his first budget could have huge cuts to education, parks, libraries... And if it doesn't, then it means he had to cut somewhere else (other union interests). If he doesn't cut in places, then the state can step in and take the budget process from him.
I honestly think he has about 90 days at the start of the year where he is going to have to ram through a large agenda in the state budget if he has any hope of winning re-election in 4 years. He can't accomplish any of his agenda without Albany. After that, his entire mayoralty might be cooked.
An unanticipated effect of the Mayor’s race will be the treatment of the housing initiatives as proxies for the top tier contest. The anti- and pro-Mamdani voters, respectively, will see the housing initiatives as giving *him* authority which, depending on one’s view, will drive votes for or against the proposals. If Mamdani wins by more than 50% the measures should pass (particularly in light of the general inertia effect that has voters tending to vote yes on almost all proposals). It will be interesting!
Great analysis. Local control over housing is a fascinating case study for how the wielding of "localism" as an ideology (rather than just a good way to spend a life) has undermined what is perceived as legitimate representation in government. (Yoni Appelbaum's "Stuck" does a really nice job of illustrating this. I wrote a post a few months ago reflecting on his thesis that decline in geographic mobility has contributed hugely to the massive housing shortages we see today - https://irrationalreview.substack.com/p/the-material-consequence-of-localism.)
It’s one thing for local venues and local leaders to serve as nodes of close-hold democracy (i.e., where we go to engage in mutual aid, test pilot programs, etc.), but something else entirely for local control to serve as a retreat from any real effort to advance on the stickiest projects, like housing shortages.
'In a real tear-jerker of an op-ed, two NYC Council members claimed that removing veto points to affordable housing production amounted to ignoring “critical racial analysis” and the historical injustices done to “Black, Latino and Asian communities” who once lacked power in development decisions.
“Now that we have the most diverse City Council in history, with record representation for women, Black, Latino and Asian New Yorkers while approving record amounts of housing with demanded investments, it should raise alarms that there is an effort to take away this hard fought-for democratic power,” they wrote. “It’s important that we question: who benefits when power that belongs to the people is taken away and placed in the hands of a few? And who is behind this?”'
I really want to know what people who think wokeness isn't real/isn't a problem think when they see stuff like this. While its implementation ranges from naive to cynical, seeing these overwrought appeals to identity rear their head over and over again in important institutions and policy decisions (not just amongst young college students as many would like to believe) remains beyond troubling.
If you look at who voted against City of Yes it mostly wasn't Black and Latino Council Members. Member Deference is a way to keep mostly White neighborhoods that way.
YIMBY is building some movement, but how do politicians campaign on this effectively? It has been a major issue in our local elections for today, with the same silly rhetoric - "You want MORE traffic? You want an URBAN CORE (wink, wink) in our community? Apartments with THOSE kind of people?"
This is a serious problem electorally. Open NY's effort to defeat NIMBY councilman Chris Marte was soundly defeated. We ran a moderate, dominant-issue YIMBY candidate in a district Zohran won by a large margin and where a decent percent of the voters just vote on the WFP line. We must be mindful of the baseline political composition of the districts we are targeting, and be open to the possibility that in deep-blue (non SF) cities like NYC the only viable path to housing abundance is from the left, requiring a fair degree of unfortunate compromise with positions like rent control. Chi Osse is a model here - https://www.tiktok.com/@chi4nyc/video/7522871451930594574
Can we please stop the use of confusing euphemisms to talk about "affordable housing" vs "housing affordability"? The former is actually TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED housing, which is no more affordable for society than any other, it just shifts the cost burden. The latter is what what you get when there is enough market rate housing stock available.
Depends on what you mean by taxpayer subsidized. Usually it refers to apartments that are deed restricted to have a maximum rent tied to area median income. The majority of such units are created through developer incentives either with density bonuses or tax breaks.
A density bonus costs nothing, it is just an upzoning. The tax breaks do come out of taxes, but also they are not a reduction in current tax receipts since development will usually raise the property value such that the property taxes paid are still higher
The notion that empowering citywide executives with the authority to approve new housing permits, by way of a *direct-democracy ballot initiative*, is somehow "undemocratic", is absurd.
I disagree about how "democratic power in the United States is diffused among far too many different elected officials and appointed bodies". I'm against the concentration of power.
However, using a democratic process to decide whether or not to adopt a socialistic process for making decisions on new housing — decisions whose consequences affect our society — is a perfect example of how socialism should be used (selectively) to enable the real-life fulfillment of liberalism.
In fact, I will be walking to my polling location to vote in favor of these proposals, just as soon as I finish typing this sentence…
>I disagree about how "democratic power in the United States is diffused among far too many different elected officials and appointed bodies". I'm against the concentration of power.
Yeah, I think there's nuance here that gets lost in YIMBY-world because decentralized power tends to result in a lot of veto points, which frustrates their particular agenda. But in other contexts it is not such a bad thing. For example, the school bus situation has been a disaster so far this year, which obviously throws a wrecking ball into the daily lives of families with working parents. But the lowest-level elected official accountable for the school buses is...the mayor. Who is basically as unreachable on a mundane local issue like this as the President of Mars. Whereas if there was some obscure hyperlocal elected official accountable, you could get real traction just coordinating like 50 angry parents to raise a big stink over it, and actually get something done.
I read Jerusalem's opinion that political power is too diffuse, as a reference to the distribution of authority among city government as a whole. However, empowering individual city councilors with the authority to approve new housing proposals within their districts is actually another *concentration* of power (isn't it?), because a single person is still responsible for these decisions, even if that person is not the mayor.
So I guess she and I do agree, after all, although I would have stated this opinion from a different point of view.
I just voted in favor of Proposal 4, by the way, which transfers this authority from *any* single person to a tribunal called the Housing Appeals Board, which is empowered to reverse preliminary decisions made by councilors. Hopefully, it passes and removes an obstacle, while also decentralizing power somewhat.
I like the idea of appeals boards because it discourages the sort of autocratic decisions made possible by the distribution of authority among local officials — by way of dividing that authority even further.
Good post! I think though that "is Mamdani a YIMBY?" is asking the wrong question. YIMBY is unlikely to be the type of movement to directly hold power. YIMBY ideas aren't popular in that way. What's going on with Mamdani is IMO what YIMBY victory looks like - politicians taking up the most workable ideas out of enlightened self-interest. Mamdani wants to make housing more affordable, and YIMBY has enough pull at this point that it was natural for him to incorporate some of our ideas alongside more traditional leftist ideas.
Mamdani being unwilling to take a public position on the ballot measures does show that not a lot of politicians are willing to be leaders because too many loud voices have sway in our fragmented media environment. In the past a politician was more than willing to be a leader or stake out a position and lead voters to better outcomes because that is what leaders do. Nowadays there are so many voices and special interest groups with competing interests that make it so tough to operate imo.
Mamdani votes in favor of ballot proposals 1-5. Good! But disappointing he waited so long to make that public
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2025/11/how-mamdani-voted-ballot-proposals/409281/
I think he really wants a 50% mandate, and he is on the cusp.
Hopefully it won't matter too much since many people are only now, on election day, tuning into the details of the election. I totally forgot there were measures on the ballot at all, but while standing in line for our ballots my wife saw that Mamdani was voting for them so I pretty much voted for them based on that, even though I didn't do proper research.
Mamdani is inheriting a NYC that is about to have huge budget shortfalls and he is likely going to be forced to be an austerity mayor. The only way he will be able to deliver affordability will be through regulatory reform — and his biggest roadblock will be traditional progressives. Feels like a recipe for failure. But we will see.
Also roughly 500k rent-stabilized units are bankrupt or about to be bankrupt so he is going to have to figure out a way to deal with that crisis.
I will note that the NYC-DSA's council members were unanimously in favor of City of Yes, and a majority of the Progressive Caucus of the City Council, especially Hanif and Osse, are arguably the most pro-housing members. A limited set of progressives tied to NIMBY community orgs like Marte will be a problem, but the core impediment to reform in NYC remains the predominantly home owning districts represented by Republicans and moderate Democrats. There is a reason Cuomo has campaigned on "protecting neighborhood character" and why Zohran vote share will likely strongly correlate with vote for 2-5.
Zach is correct. Alliances are weird in NYC and many of the most progressive City Council members have advanced the largest rezonings. But the entire structure of the government has resisted regulatory reform that would lower costs for working class NYers. Mamadani’s video on Halalflation gives me hope he might crack that nut. But the City Council just passed a bill that gives plumbers a monopoly on the installation and disconnecting of all gas stoves in the city… which will raise rents and will lead to insane delays in service.
>and his biggest roadblock will be traditional progressives. Feels like a recipe for failure. But we will see.
I wonder if there's a "only Nixon could go to China" dynamic at work here. It could be Mamdani is more, not less, likely to succeed precisely because he'll have political capital to burn with the NIMBY progressive groups. Kind of just depends on what he actually wants to do
I think that is the hope many have. He doesn't owe the unions a thing, because they all backed Cuomo in the primary. He doesn't owe traditional political clubs a thing. He does have to support his DSA base, but they have been increasingly pragmatic about many things.
But he is going to inherit a mess. I think his first budget could have huge cuts to education, parks, libraries... And if it doesn't, then it means he had to cut somewhere else (other union interests). If he doesn't cut in places, then the state can step in and take the budget process from him.
I honestly think he has about 90 days at the start of the year where he is going to have to ram through a large agenda in the state budget if he has any hope of winning re-election in 4 years. He can't accomplish any of his agenda without Albany. After that, his entire mayoralty might be cooked.
An unanticipated effect of the Mayor’s race will be the treatment of the housing initiatives as proxies for the top tier contest. The anti- and pro-Mamdani voters, respectively, will see the housing initiatives as giving *him* authority which, depending on one’s view, will drive votes for or against the proposals. If Mamdani wins by more than 50% the measures should pass (particularly in light of the general inertia effect that has voters tending to vote yes on almost all proposals). It will be interesting!
Great analysis. Local control over housing is a fascinating case study for how the wielding of "localism" as an ideology (rather than just a good way to spend a life) has undermined what is perceived as legitimate representation in government. (Yoni Appelbaum's "Stuck" does a really nice job of illustrating this. I wrote a post a few months ago reflecting on his thesis that decline in geographic mobility has contributed hugely to the massive housing shortages we see today - https://irrationalreview.substack.com/p/the-material-consequence-of-localism.)
It’s one thing for local venues and local leaders to serve as nodes of close-hold democracy (i.e., where we go to engage in mutual aid, test pilot programs, etc.), but something else entirely for local control to serve as a retreat from any real effort to advance on the stickiest projects, like housing shortages.
Yoni’s book is fantastic on this!
Rooting for all these YIMBY measures!
'In a real tear-jerker of an op-ed, two NYC Council members claimed that removing veto points to affordable housing production amounted to ignoring “critical racial analysis” and the historical injustices done to “Black, Latino and Asian communities” who once lacked power in development decisions.
“Now that we have the most diverse City Council in history, with record representation for women, Black, Latino and Asian New Yorkers while approving record amounts of housing with demanded investments, it should raise alarms that there is an effort to take away this hard fought-for democratic power,” they wrote. “It’s important that we question: who benefits when power that belongs to the people is taken away and placed in the hands of a few? And who is behind this?”'
I really want to know what people who think wokeness isn't real/isn't a problem think when they see stuff like this. While its implementation ranges from naive to cynical, seeing these overwrought appeals to identity rear their head over and over again in important institutions and policy decisions (not just amongst young college students as many would like to believe) remains beyond troubling.
If you look at who voted against City of Yes it mostly wasn't Black and Latino Council Members. Member Deference is a way to keep mostly White neighborhoods that way.
YIMBY is building some movement, but how do politicians campaign on this effectively? It has been a major issue in our local elections for today, with the same silly rhetoric - "You want MORE traffic? You want an URBAN CORE (wink, wink) in our community? Apartments with THOSE kind of people?"
This is a serious problem electorally. Open NY's effort to defeat NIMBY councilman Chris Marte was soundly defeated. We ran a moderate, dominant-issue YIMBY candidate in a district Zohran won by a large margin and where a decent percent of the voters just vote on the WFP line. We must be mindful of the baseline political composition of the districts we are targeting, and be open to the possibility that in deep-blue (non SF) cities like NYC the only viable path to housing abundance is from the left, requiring a fair degree of unfortunate compromise with positions like rent control. Chi Osse is a model here - https://www.tiktok.com/@chi4nyc/video/7522871451930594574
Can we please stop the use of confusing euphemisms to talk about "affordable housing" vs "housing affordability"? The former is actually TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED housing, which is no more affordable for society than any other, it just shifts the cost burden. The latter is what what you get when there is enough market rate housing stock available.
Depends on what you mean by taxpayer subsidized. Usually it refers to apartments that are deed restricted to have a maximum rent tied to area median income. The majority of such units are created through developer incentives either with density bonuses or tax breaks.
Don't those bonuses or breaks come out of taxes, or projected taxes?
A density bonus costs nothing, it is just an upzoning. The tax breaks do come out of taxes, but also they are not a reduction in current tax receipts since development will usually raise the property value such that the property taxes paid are still higher
The notion that empowering citywide executives with the authority to approve new housing permits, by way of a *direct-democracy ballot initiative*, is somehow "undemocratic", is absurd.
I disagree about how "democratic power in the United States is diffused among far too many different elected officials and appointed bodies". I'm against the concentration of power.
However, using a democratic process to decide whether or not to adopt a socialistic process for making decisions on new housing — decisions whose consequences affect our society — is a perfect example of how socialism should be used (selectively) to enable the real-life fulfillment of liberalism.
In fact, I will be walking to my polling location to vote in favor of these proposals, just as soon as I finish typing this sentence…
I hope they pass!
>I disagree about how "democratic power in the United States is diffused among far too many different elected officials and appointed bodies". I'm against the concentration of power.
Yeah, I think there's nuance here that gets lost in YIMBY-world because decentralized power tends to result in a lot of veto points, which frustrates their particular agenda. But in other contexts it is not such a bad thing. For example, the school bus situation has been a disaster so far this year, which obviously throws a wrecking ball into the daily lives of families with working parents. But the lowest-level elected official accountable for the school buses is...the mayor. Who is basically as unreachable on a mundane local issue like this as the President of Mars. Whereas if there was some obscure hyperlocal elected official accountable, you could get real traction just coordinating like 50 angry parents to raise a big stink over it, and actually get something done.
This is a good point.
I read Jerusalem's opinion that political power is too diffuse, as a reference to the distribution of authority among city government as a whole. However, empowering individual city councilors with the authority to approve new housing proposals within their districts is actually another *concentration* of power (isn't it?), because a single person is still responsible for these decisions, even if that person is not the mayor.
So I guess she and I do agree, after all, although I would have stated this opinion from a different point of view.
I just voted in favor of Proposal 4, by the way, which transfers this authority from *any* single person to a tribunal called the Housing Appeals Board, which is empowered to reverse preliminary decisions made by councilors. Hopefully, it passes and removes an obstacle, while also decentralizing power somewhat.
I like the idea of appeals boards because it discourages the sort of autocratic decisions made possible by the distribution of authority among local officials — by way of dividing that authority even further.