What is a New York City where working class people no longer can afford to live? What kind of identity, what type of soul, would that place have?
Would it still glow with the restless energy with which we’ve always been defined by? Or would it recede in its absence?
By relentlessly challenging the status quo of deepening unaffordability, Zohran Mamdani is calling this into question.
He is asking if anything short of bold sweeping action will save the essence of this place. He has run on an agenda that puts working people first — a rent freeze for more than two million tenants, universal child care for all kids 6 weeks to 5-year-olds, faster and free buses. It’s an agenda that won him a historic Democratic primary victory this past June, as an unprecedented coalition of New Yorkers stood up and demanded more from the city government.
Yet, though many New Yorkers agree with him — many others are skeptical. Still others have lost faith in the city government’s ability to not only talk, but deliver. They want to know one fundamental truth: can it be done?
I can say definitely — and I know better than anyone — that the answer is yes.
Throughout my time in City Hall, the argument that my vision was recklessly idealistic — that it was both unrealistic and fraught with dangerous unintended consequences — was thrown at my plans for affordable housing, paid sick days, the $15 minimum wage and most of all, pre-K for All — all initiatives I delivered on.
Often, these critiques were lodged by politicians and special interest groups who had a vested interest in maintaining the broken status quo. In short, labeling my agenda as infeasible masked their true problem with it: an unwillingness to cede power and opportunity to working people.
In 2025, the same overheated condemnations yield the same result as in 2013: not only does the public want what Mamdani is proposing, it actually all can be done.
Free buses are already being implemented around the nation to get people to use mass transit; it is entirely doable with even a modest initial investment and basic cooperation between the city and state. Not to mention, it’s smart policy that will speed up buses, increase ridership particularly from working New Yorkers, and likely safer commutes for bus drivers and riders alike.
Our success as a city with pre-K and 3-K — programs that serve nearly 100,000 New York City kids and have been heralded across the nation — shows how well we can start building a pathway to universal child care. There is a precedent for using city government to deliver broad-sweeping change — it’s a precedent that continues to support New Yorkers to this day.
Lastly, the rent freeze. My administration delivered a rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments three times, helping millions make ends meet as they were afflicted by the effects of the Great Recession and then COVID. It’s not a question of possibility — it’s a matter of political will.
At a time when Donald Trump is cutting SNAP benefits, gutting Medicaid, and once again leaving working people out to dry, the need for an unwavering fighter in City Hall has never been higher. It’s not enough to have a “leader” unwilling to be bold in their pursuit for economic opportunity, or hiding behind this so-called question of feasibility.
New Yorkers are demanding sweeping changes. Two-thirds of New Yorkers support city-owned grocery stores, particularly in food deserts — Mamdani has proposed one in each borough. Three-fourths support free buses and universal child care.
We don’t just need Zohran Mamdani to be our mayor because he has the right ideas, or because they can be achieved. We need him because in his heart and in his bones he cannot accept a city that prices out the people who built it and keep it running.
We’ve proven before that the extraordinary power of the New York City government can actually start to fix what’s broken for working people, that we could actually put them first. It’s time to do it again — and go even further — with Zohran Mamdani.
De Blasio was the 109th mayor of New York, from 2014 to 2021.
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