I just found out that Zohran Mandamus a democratic socialist, an Indian Muslim born in Uganda was elected ad mayor of New York.
I didn't follow the NY elections, I just read the news, I got the same feeling as the election of Obama: that a person who doesn't fit to the WASP profile of the establishment was elected and everything will be fine for marginalized.
Obama came to white house with Hope and left disappointment.
The bailout of the financial in 2008 subprime crisis, and the protection of wall street crooks who engineered it, was one of the disappointments.
Another one was the Afghanistan, which he couldn't solve it despite billions thrown at the problem.
Ukrainians and by in large European allies were disappointed, when he didn't pushed back in 2014 when Russia took Crieea, dispute the US security guarantees given to Ukraine in 1992.
He disappointed the parents of children shot in schools, when he wept in a sprach instead of doing something, like increase security around schools, paying for mental help, using profiling on children to detect who will be a shooter.
Those are disappointments felt by an European, I imagine that Americans were more disappointed if they voted for Trump
Will Mandami crush the hopes of New Yorkers ?
What I know about NY is from internet and especially from Louis Rossman the activist for rights to repair, so my assessment is not correct.
What I know:
1.The rent in NY is high
2.The metro is dirty and unsafe
3.The garbage is dumped on back alleys and rats are Godzilla size.
What I know that Mandami promised:
1. Rent control
2. Free metro
3. He declared that NY is a city of emigrants and for emigrants
How he tries to solve the rent problem?
Rent is dependent of population density and number of landlords.
You increase population density by accepting emigrants or worse tourists, :) you increase the rent for people who work in the city.
This is seems on all touristic European cities.
In the city you need a minimum number of essential workers: garbage collectors,policemen,nurses, construction workers etc.
If the rent is high you don't have them or you have to pay them more increasing overall cost for citizens.
You can't reduce number of City dwellers. You can expect that the number will increase.
The number of landlords it is essential because a low number of landlords can artificially increase the rent price.
What the mayor can do ?
1.Negotiate on behalf of the people with land lords
2.Build more public houses with low rent.
By negotiating he can demand a limit of increase in rent, as it is in Berlin.
I don't know if he has anti monopoly powers to force landlords to divest or to sell a part of their proprieties.
This could be a solution to increase competition.
He might demand to lower the rent, but I don't know if he can force the land lords to do it.
Even if he can force land lords to lower the rent I don't think is a good idea. If the rent is below expenses some landlord will not rent it and the offer will be lower, and it is better to have an expensive rent than no home at all.
Also artificial lowering the prices will disincentive people to rent or build.
He can enforce a sanitation code on land lords so they can't demand 2000$ /month for a storage room.
If they request 2000$ they should give more amenities like kitchen and bathroom with a minim area
This might force some land lord to reduce price or improve quality.
After the 1917 coup, the communists took over the houses of the bourgeoisie and of the noblemen and crowded inside in insalubre conditions members of the proletariat, I don't see this happening in NY no matter how communist the mayor is.
The communists finally solved the housing problem by building drab,grey commie blocks.
I think this the most realistic solution is number 2: build commie blocks in New York.
The issue of NY metro: it looks bad and under maintained, here I think he should keep the fares, make it more safe more clean, to attract more people, and then when you have enough travellers to offer you a good cash flow you can reduce the ticket price.
Inundating infrastructure with non paying customers will break it.
Regarding the trash, in the past the garbage collection was monopolized by Mafia, if it didn't changed, Mandami will have a difficult time to get rid of rats.
Let's see how many promises Zohran Mandami can keep.
