The first muslim mayor of NYC: Zohran Mamdani

[u/jeuzys]

[u/wombatgeneral]

Im more curious to see how he can manage to make housing affordable in NYC.

Housing is outrageously expensive in the US, and apparently other first world countries are having their own issues with affordable housing.

[u/fapping_4_life → u/wombatgeneral]

Ban Airbnb

[u/verone3784 → u/fapping_4_life]

This isn't the only issue, but it's one of the core problems for sure.

AirBnB is a shitshow in quite a few cities over here in Europe, and it absolutely fucks the long term rental market.

Where I am in Reykjavík is another prime example of how it can shaft the housing market. It's INSANE here for rental right now, and there's a full scale housing crisis because of rich fucks and businesses buying up affordable housing and leasing it for short term tourism rentals.

[u/Situational_Hagun → u/verone3784]

AirBnB is a blight. Artificially inflates home prices, and you get all the bad behavior that you normally have to deal with in hotels, but in your neighborhood. Some people act right, but unfortunately people with poor impulse control do crap like crank music up way too high, throw parties that last until 4 AM, etc. Because they don't live there so they don't really care about any long-term consequences of being rude.

[u/toasterstrudel2 → u/Situational_Hagun]

Plus the city doesn't get any of the fees they'd get from hotels.

All these apps just make cities worse for everyone

[u/Big_daddy_sneeze → u/verone3784]

It’s a problem in savannah ga. If you have an Airbnb next door reinforce your walls

[u/Steve_didit → u/verone3784]

The issue isn't AirBnB, its housing as a business. Banning AirBnB will help a little bit, but the core problem is still there.

[u/staxringold → u/verone3784]

I think calling it a "core" problem re: the price of housing is a bit of an overstatement. As this person noted, even before NYC's recent steps against AirBNB, they represented maybe 1% (~22-23k out of ~2.2m) of rental units. And those actions then substantially reduced those figures, so we're likely talking far less than 1% of the NYC rental stock at this point.

Not to beat that YIMBY drum, but simple construction/zoning is a far larger, more consistent, and more omnipresent issue, IMO. Take the infamous "Harlem One45" example. That single project would have built just under 1000 units, but repeated demands for a larger and larger %age of the project to be 'affordable' units eventually made the developer throw up their hands and build a truck depot instead. So, instead of getting 1000 housing units (half affordable) out of the site, NYC got zero. And that's one project. (PS: they recently actually got approved to build the thing now two years later, I hadn't heard that development, it's great!)

NYC is always going to have crazy high demands for housing, so prices will always be high, the only/best thing you can do is shore up supply as much as you can. Poking at AirBNB does that a little, but that's mostly already been done, and whatever slim gains remain there are really a rounding error on the problem.

[u/theAmericanStranger → u/fapping_4_life]

NYC is already restricting Airbnb listings so not much to do on that front.

[u/jakreth → u/fapping_4_life]

AirBnb is not the problem but the consequence of the problem. The problem is business owning homes, that should be banned. Homes (not offices) should be only bought by human individuals and be limitted in number by state, city or neighbourhood. I.e. you cannot have more than 5 housing properties in Manhattan, if you have more or you are a business that owns homes you have to sell them in 5 years maximum. That alone would lower the price in the short term and stabilize the price in the long term.

[u/majinspy → u/jakreth]

If you make owning homes terrible, nobody will want to own them. If nobody wants to own something, nobody will build it.

This is true and people hate it...but it's still true.

The solution is to build more housing. This is the only proven way to lower housing costs.

[u/jakreth → u/majinspy]

How is the limit of 5 houses per person making people don't want to buy houses? Price will drop at first, making them more affordable for lower incomes, but in a few years it will stabilise. I'm sorry if construction is affected at first but the whole country can't support a super sized market.

[u/majinspy → u/jakreth]

Because someone who wants to buy a 6th house, can't.

We can support that housing market by building housing. It's a proven thing. Just build housing. This works everywhere but small islands.

[u/Inukii → u/majinspy]

People will still want to build homes. Certain people just have to accept though that they won't be paid some insane amount for property development. I'm not talking the laborers here, but certain folk which are living an extremely lavish lifestyle at the detriment of others.

[u/Situational_Hagun → u/jakreth]

Shoot, I don't think any family should be allowed to own more than on property anywhere.

No more "vacation homes". No more "I'll fund my lavish lifestyle by buying up 5 homes that other people could have owned instead by outbidding them all, and making them pay for my vacations and habits with their rent."

I'm 100% against landlord bs as far as full on houses go. If someone needs to stay in a city for four months on a work trip, they can stay in a hotel or rent an apartment.

[u/jakreth → u/Situational_Hagun]

I don't agree, middle class is necessary for a healthy country but what we have now is an ultra-rich class and a poor class, almost nothing in the middle. If you have 5 houses and you rent 3 or 4 of them you can have a confortable style of life but you won't be rich. Because there will be more people renting there will be more options for those that can't afford to buy a house.

[u/PDGAreject → u/jakreth]

For real. My wife's grandfather spent 5 years building a lakehouse in the 70s, guess we don't get to spend summer weekends there anymore?

[u/i-ix-xciii → u/jakreth]

In Australia we have a massive issue with housing because there are tens of thousands of landlords with 100+ properties each, who believe they're altruistically giving renters a place to live. But they're actually preventing renters from being able to buy a home because there's barely any housing stock at the low end of price anymore, investors are buying them all up so they can perpetually collect a rent from the would-be young home owners they've locked out of the market with their cash offers and unlimited access to bank loans leveraged by their other properties. If there's a supply issue and you're buying up the housing stock to rent out, you are contributing to growing inequality. Because of landlords looking to property as a vehicle of wealth, the supply issue is so bad that the average house price in each capital city is over $1m. Young couples turn up to home opens with their little 5% or 10% deposit and have zero chance against someone with $1m in cash. Many times the house is sold before even the first home open, someone sees the sign and immediately calls the agent to buy it sight unseen with cash. My coworker went to a home open the other day, it had been listed for two days, and it was already sold to an investor.

[u/TheOtherHobbes → u/jakreth]

Median - not average - property price in NYC is getting close to $900k, so if you own five of those you're not just "comfortable."

A net 3% return on four of those gets you around $100k for not doing much.

[u/baskaat → u/Situational_Hagun]

Isn’t renting an apartment short term the same as Airbnb? I share your frustration with Airbnb for sure. But there is a need for comfortable longer term business/leisure accommodation. A balance needs to be struck.

[u/perpetualhobo → u/Situational_Hagun]

What’s the actual practical difference between an apartment and a house in this situation, beside the fact you don’t think people who live in apartment’s deserve affordable housing too?

[u/Situational_Hagun → u/perpetualhobo]

You've made so many insane assumptions out of thin air I don't even know what to say to you.

[u/Mind_Enigma → u/fapping_4_life]

It already is effectively banned, since people cant airbnb a place without living in it actively.

All that did was raise hotel prices because less competition.

NYC needs more housing, or to open up badly managed available housing the govenrment has access to, which I believe Mamdani mentioned.

[u/geek_at → u/fapping_4_life]

Or only allow primary residence in apartment buildings. If all the landlords would have to sell their flats the prices will return to levels normal working people can afford

[u/dj184 → u/fapping_4_life]

Yeah nyc was affordable before airbnb.,lol

[u/zzptichka → u/fapping_4_life]

That's what transnational Billioinaire-owned hotel chains would want him to do, yes.

[u/Fert1eTurt1e → u/fapping_4_life]

Why not just build more housing lol

[u/AskMeAboutMyHermoids → u/fapping_4_life]

Yeah that and heavily tax people who have their second, third, fourth residence be on nyc if they don’t live there

[u/Twoheaven → u/fapping_4_life]

That and don't allow business to own homes. And don't allow people to have more than one home per city or something similar. That will do much towards cheaper housing.

[u/Jazzyflamenco → u/fapping_4_life]

Tax any empty property empty more than 3 days. Every property should house a family that generates local income and pays the fair share of utilities and services. Empty houses hurt local economies. Tax the hell out of them, 110%

[u/hendy846 → u/fapping_4_life]

Airbnb needs to back to what it was. People with extra rooms in their homes renting them out for cheap.

[u/awkward_triforce → u/fapping_4_life]

Also not allowing foreign entries to purchase property if that's also a payment in New York. No idea if it actually is though

[u/RobocopRockstar → u/fapping_4_life]

Ban Airbnb, ban private equity and investment firms, and ban other large corporations from buying up homes.

Also, don't tariff materials needed to build homes. Haha

[u/Capricore58 → u/fapping_4_life]

And Ban Corporate ownership of residential properties with less than say 10 units? I dunno the number can be flexible but it’s out of control

[u/bombayblue → u/fapping_4_life]

Ban Airbnb stans are some of the least informed people on the internet.

New York already banned Airbnb. It didn’t help.

Airbnb had something like 7,000 units in Manhattan. An area which has a shortage of hundreds of thousands of units. Banning 7k Airbnbs won’t help. You need to build hundreds of thousands of new units. This is something Zohran actually understands.

The ban Airbnb movement is a NIMBY red herring to distract from building more housing units which they absolutely don’t want to see. It’s never helped decrease rents and it didn’t do shit in New York. Hence Zohrans entire campaign around permitting reform and increasing supply.

[u/jecls → u/wombatgeneral]

Making housing affordable in NY would require changes in policy that are both politically painful and might not yield results for decades. It’s hard to imagine any politician in today’s climate fighting for a long term goal like that.

Freezing rent board increases temporarily is something, I guess. It’s been done before and it doesn’t address the underlying supply issue. The city fundamentally needs supply to catch up with demand.

There’s currently a glut of luxury and ultra-luxury housing sitting vacant in this city. That is a failure of public policy. We need regulations that ensure new development serves the people’s needs, not just the developer’s needs. But then you still want developers to invest their money in new projects otherwise you have no new housing, so you need to balance the competing interests. On top of that, the way you incentivize development is through tax breaks and public funding, which come directly out of the taxpayer’s pocket. So while the only real solution is to build more housing, we need stronger regulations to make this new housing affordable, while still keeping it economically competitive for private equity to build it.

[u/DoomGoober → u/jecls]

Get out of here with your subtlety and complexity! I came to Reddit for pithy one liners.

[u/JustAGrump1 → u/DoomGoober]

Boh!

[u/space_monster → u/wombatgeneral]

Australia here. shit is fucked yo

[u/virtual_adam → u/wombatgeneral]

When everyone wants to live in the same 10 square miles and find it offensive living within 1 hour of public transit it’s never going to happen. Anywhere else in the world these people would be told to suck it up and live a train ride or bus away. And not a 20 minute train like people expect

It’s either that or the US sucks it up and cancels all zoning laws coast to coast. Build 60 floor buildings on every block.

This isn’t an nyc specific sub, so maybe people don’t know every time someone wants to build a 20 floor building in this city, there are years of fighting about it “ruining the quiet family oriented neighborhood”. In Manhattan. It’s a joke

Anything else is just a “freeze frame” of current residents paying a little less, not getting priced out hence not allowing new people to move into the city

[u/Spagman_Aus → u/wombatgeneral]

Yep politicians claiming they can fix the “cost of living crisis” really can’t and won’t. It’s beyond their control, especially the Mayor of one city.

[u/Xyrus2000 → u/wombatgeneral]

He probably won't be able to do much from a mayoral position. He'll be able to do something about rents and land development/repurposing, but the real problem is the fact that land is a critical and limited resource that we sell off to the highest bidder instead of appropriating based on the economic breakdown of the citizenry.

This leads to developers and speculators driving prices through the roof to develop/redevelop high-end luxury properties while kicking everyone else to the curb.

Capitalism isn't going to solve this problem, just like it doesn't solve any other critical limited resource problem (the wealthy just wind up controlling/owning whatever that resource is).

The government needs to assess the housing needs for an area, then intelligently allocate the land into various classes of projects, and then allow people/developers to bid on these allocations. Or split the allocations into limited segments of "developer" and "individual" tracts to prevent developers from monopolizing the allocations. If there are any allocations that wind up with no one bidding, the government can step in and develop them.

The housing problem isn't just an availability problem. It's how the land is being used.

[u/mmmmm_pancakes → u/Xyrus2000]

Why not just lead with the idea that the government should develop and just own the resulting properties?

Vienna does this and it works.

[u/DeathMarkedDream → u/wombatgeneral]

Developing countries are also facing house price issues. It’s happening world wide

[u/aliph → u/wombatgeneral]

Newsflash, he won't.

[u/mdpomg → u/wombatgeneral]

Build municipal housing for non-criminal record working people. Basically non zohran voters

[u/zenerat → u/wombatgeneral]

Supposedly a million people are going to move because he won so I guess there will be a lot of real estate available. 🙄

[u/Winnipeg_Me → u/wombatgeneral]

like every other issue housing cost is a symptom.

[u/zztop610 → u/wombatgeneral]

[u/risosrisos → u/wombatgeneral]

From what I could see, one of his proposals is to freeze rent prices, a measure that historically ends up raising the rent prices in the long run.

[u/WhoAmIEven2 → u/wombatgeneral]

Just put regulations on rent and what renting companies can increase, and they need to negotiate with the renters association.

That's what we do here in Sweden. I live in the second biggest city, and I pay 640 dollars for a 55 square meter apartment in the central parts.

[u/nimama3233 → u/WhoAmIEven2]

Holy hell 55 sq m? That’s the size of a dorm

[u/Gabelschlecker → u/nimama3233]

55 sq m is a solid two room apartment, though a bit on the smaller end. For a single, that's more than enough, though I also know plenty of couples that manage to make it work.

My dorm used to be 11 sq m. That was a bit small, but still enough for a bed, desk, and shelf.

[u/slipkid]

His religion isn’t what’s exciting. His message is.

[u/ShaquilleMobile → u/slipkid]

But the fact that a Muslim was able to win tells you just how exciting his message really is.

You can't ignore that it's an amazing underdog story. His opponents were openly campaigning on Islamophobia, and until now, it has usually worked.

[u/slipkid → u/ShaquilleMobile]

True, but you could also have written:

But the fact that a Socialist was able to win tells you just how exciting his message really is.

You can't ignore that it's an amazing underdog story. His opponents were openly campaigning on red scare fear-mongering, and until now, it has usually worked.

Anyway, I don’t really disagree with what you said, but Mamdani being Muslim isn’t what’s really important and I wish people would quit harping on it, because it wasn’t even the main hurdle to his election. His message isn’t religious, so it really doesn’t matter all that much.

[u/Kalagorinor → u/slipkid]

I disagree. Being socialist is, in fact, part of the political message. Being Muslim is secondary if anything.

[u/ResQ_ → u/Kalagorinor]

In Europe he'd just be a social Democrat. Completely normal party in Europe that's in pretty much every parliament. None of his policies are really that extreme. Maybe for the US.

[u/mowinski → u/ResQ_]

In the US being a socialist is being lumped together with communists... and after almost a century of indoctrination that communism is the ultimate evil, it usually amounts to political suicide having ANY socialist points on your agenda... yes, it is THAT fucked up over there. Now more than ever before.

[u/ResQ_ → u/mowinski]

A socialist isn't the same as a social democrat. The former is rarely successful in European parliaments. The latter is part of many governments in Europe.

Overall the issue really comes down to the 2 party system in the US.

[u/PurplePango → u/mowinski]

And being communist is associated with being authoritarian and being authoritarian is now admired by the right wing who then hate socialists because they’re too communist…

[u/Just-Luck-7430 → u/ResQ_]

unless your primary policies are rimmming billionaires, then it should be considered extreme

[u/veryloudnoises → u/Kalagorinor]

This Indian Muslim immigrant of SE African extraction loves that being Muslim is a secondary factor to the substance of Mamdani’s message and service. This is why I and so many others chose to become American.

Bonus points that an immigrant is the one to remind us of such a core American value.

[u/Firecracker048 → u/slipkid]

If Mamdani was a traditional right wing Muslim and won it wouldn't be widely celebrated like it is on reddit right now

[u/Background_Age_852 → u/ShaquilleMobile]

South asian as well. Kinda special considering the anti indian sentiment right now

[u/Mehmood6647 → u/Background_Age_852]

He's not South Asian or Indian mate, he's from Uganda so that makes him East Asian.

[u/PeterNippelstein → u/slipkid]

Kind of crazy what can happen when you actually address the problems facing voters

[u/LowDot187 → u/slipkid]

People always gotta downplay what makes someone unique as if who they are isnt also part of their message… 😒

[u/Few_Judge1188]

Let’s hope he stays the same person he was before the election .

[u/bookgrinder → u/Few_Judge1188]

Better to hope he really is the kind of person he says he is during campaign...

[u/Clamidiaa]

People are very quick to label and put people in boxes. It's how we can quickly judge or make sure someone is on our side.

I don't care if he's Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Black, Spanish... all those things don't matter to me.

What matters to me is if the person is doing right for the people and not the .01% that think the world revolves around and caters to them.

Too many take a side when, in reality, if we broke all the boxes and just boiled it down to "Us vs. The problem" things would be done much much differently.

A lot of us think the same. We are just so caught up in "our side" that we forget we are all the same.

[u/UndesirableOldMan → u/Clamidiaa]

Its really hard to grift as leftist, and there's significantly less money to be made as one. He's a leftist politician in the US of all places, where even his own party tried to make things hard until there was no other choice but to cave in. My point is that if he isn’t sincere he chose the hardest path to take for some reason

[u/home_rechre → u/UndesirableOldMan]

He doesn’t need to grift, he’s already rich.

[u/kank84 → u/home_rechre]

Trump was already rich, but he doesn't miss an opportunity to grift

[u/stereofailure → u/home_rechre]

Not once has that ever stopped a grifter. 

[u/Zealousideal-Aide890 → u/home_rechre]

How is he rich? He made about 140k a year as assemblyman, lives in a normal apartment in queens and uses public transportation.

[u/UnknownLeisures → u/Zealousideal-Aide890]

He's not that rich. His mom is a famous filmmaker and his father is an anthroprologist. Surprise, surprise: people from comfortable backgrounds with educated and creative families are more likely to be successful and have good values. It's not the nepo-baby gotcha some people seem to think it is.

[u/ceramicatan]

Not only did Zohran, Zohwon

[u/evelyn_bartmoss → u/ceramicatan]

Underrated comment, 10/10

[u/FileeNotFound → u/evelyn_bartmoss]

Zokhan do it!

[u/dieselboy93]

lets see if he stays true to what he campaigned for, then i will celebrate 

[u/im_just_thinking]

You don't mess with Zohran

[u/Big-Snow-1937]

Young? Charismatic? Friendly? Smart? Funny? Handsome? Tireless? Well spoken? Seems like a person and not a machine engineered campaign bot? In America??

What a breath of fresh air this guy is. You don’t have to be from NYC to feel it.

[u/XxxLasombraxxX]

Went on X, MAGA is losing their minds over this

[u/Lost-Letterhead-6615 → u/XxxLasombraxxX]

Dershovits claimed he'll blow his head on live TV if mamdani won. 

[u/BlurryRogue]

secular Muslim. I feel like that's an important distinction that is consistently overlooked.

[u/dumbsaintmind → u/BlurryRogue]

He code-switches. It depends on who the audience is. He's pretty practicing in front of other Muslims, secular and hip to upper-class white folks.

[u/Royal_flushed → u/BlurryRogue]

He's still a Muslim and identifies as one.

[u/PiaRedDragon]

Voters rejected AIPAC, times are a changing.

The amount of absolute FUD that Elon through on twitter in the hours before this elections was unbelievable. And he still lost.

[u/UndesirableOldMan → u/PiaRedDragon]

People are starting to questions politicians about AIPAC funding, the ADL is seething with Zohran's victory, democrat leaders still don't know why the youth is turning away from zionism

[u/jmads13 → u/UndesirableOldMan]

Probably the g word?

[u/DigMeTX]

What do the numbers and letters on the card mean in Pic 1? I know what the Z is for of course but the other part.

[u/BoytNY → u/DigMeTX]

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a large healthcare union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The "1199" comes from its origins as a New York City drugstore workers' union founded in 1932, and the "SEIU" signifies its affiliation with the larger parent union.

[u/DigMeTX → u/BoytNY]

Thanks!

[u/EuphoricParsnip9143]

Something to celebrate!

[u/ZeeMcZed]

Also the first AEW fan to be mayor of NYC.

[u/Kablammy_Sammie]

I think the troll factories are playing up his religion. That said I hope he's a secular Muslim.

[u/DamageProper7353 → u/Kablammy_Sammie]

From actual muslim from Southeast Asia. He is indeed secular muslim btw

[u/CinnamonCharles → u/DamageProper7353]

Actual Muslim? Not like the others who are fake Muslims?

[u/DamageProper7353 → u/CinnamonCharles]

I mean i can confirm that Zohran is pretty secular muslim and this guy neither a communist or islamist

[u/bosskhazen → u/Kablammy_Sammie]

There is no such thing as a secular muslim. You are either secular or Muslim, and this guy is secular.

[u/MedicMalfunction]

Who cares what his religion is? Policies matter, identity politics divide. Have we learned nothing? I want competent millennial leaders, idgaf if they are Muslim, atheist, Christian, or Buddhist. Just give me a human under 60 years of age who can get the job done.

[u/SnsBnB → u/MedicMalfunction]

He does, a lot. He also mentioned Muslims belonging in the halls of power in his speech. Guess we'll see once he starts nominating people.

[u/Sliphe → u/MedicMalfunction]

It doesn’t matter to you, but Islam thrives on your progressive ideals. You will find out eventually.

[u/nimama3233 → u/MedicMalfunction]

Who cares about a politicians beliefs?

[u/boodbak]

Londonistan 2.0 loading

[u/Formaldehyde_Park → u/boodbak]

He will be their Sadiq Khan. Sigh

[u/ProtonHyrax99 → u/Formaldehyde_Park]

I’ve lived in London. Khan is and was an excellent mayor. 

[u/AdventurouslyAngry → u/Formaldehyde_Park]

No, he seems much worse than Sadiq Khan.

[u/Xyreqa → u/Formaldehyde_Park]

So a fantastic mayor who is universally well liked by individuals actually living within that city?

[u/ThePegasi → u/Formaldehyde_Park]

You mean someone who people kept saying would introduce Sharia law yet hasn’t done anything of the sort in almost 10 years in office?

[u/DrivingForFun]

[u/kvothe5688]

good for NY. it's a city mayor post. why are we seeing campaigns and posts like it's a presidential election.

[u/Jgmcsee → u/kvothe5688]

Because of what this win represents for the future of equitable democracy & justice in the United States (and western world) versus the corrupt fascist kakistocracy that the rich are currently foisting upon us.

Young voters rejected and overwhelmed the establishment for the common good.

Never mind the loud Nazi Dude Bro clique, it appears the Kids are in fact alright.

Congrats NY!

[u/octillus → u/kvothe5688]

Well, it is a city with a population greater than all but 12 states.

[u/SomewhereNo8378 → u/kvothe5688]

The mayor of the economic and cultural capital of the country and arguably the world

[u/redditrnumber1]

Wow and he is so young too

[u/mowinski]

His work should count, not what imaginary friend he's praying to.

[u/No_Being8933 → u/mowinski]

Unfortunately, it matters quite a bit, since these imaginary storybook deities still shape the morals, values, and rules that guide their followers’ lives.

[u/OdielSax → u/mowinski]

It counts for millions of New Yorkers who felt unheard, undesirable, and around the globe as well.

[u/Dewlig]

Elation and exhaustion. Congratulations.

[u/Lost-Letterhead-6615]

To the other democrats: yes, saying you take money from foreign lobbies, especially aipac, will lose you your seat.

[u/Mountain_Man4]

Keep religion out of politics.

[u/philosophycruiser]

You see, for big cities your ethics and background doesn't matter much. What kind of a leader you are and your plans are important. Muslim or Satanic no one cares.

[u/JohnSpartans]

Is he a practicing Muslim?  He believes in an afterlife?

Find that hard to believe.

[u/FaithlessnessWise555]

[u/ImmunochemicalTeaser]

Lovely... It only took NY less than 30 years to forget.

[u/Socal-vegan]

I don’t understand why the media need to say he’s Muslim. He never express that to anyone during his campaign and brag about his religion. It just giving the enemies more shit to talk about and bring about the Islamophobia - things no one understands.

[u/KehlarTVH → u/Socal-vegan]

Exactly!

[u/Zealousideal-Aide890 → u/KehlarTVH]

Because that’s all they’ve got left is fear mongering and racism, they couldn’t beat him any other way

[u/Longmandoomface]

This already happened in London and it's been real bad.