Is Zohran Mamdani a YIMBY Socialist?
If it quacks like a permit streamliner…
Everyone is writing think pieces about Zohran Mamdani recently winning the primary in the race for New York City mayor, and I’m joining in. Because, for anyone who does politics in a major American City it is a big deal. In the city in which Democrats make up two-thirds of the electorate, winning the primary is not quite tantamount to winning the general election — but it’s damn near close.
While Mamdani’s vibes seem good on housing, there’s been a lot of online debate about whether he will support market rate housing (as opposed falling into the affordable-only position). YIMBYs, who support both subsidized-affordable and market-rate housing construction, have had a range of reactions, from skepticism about his proposed rent freeze to celebrating his “joyful, energetic campaign.”
For those interested in the potential path for progressive pro-housing candidates, Mamdani represents an exciting break from the traditional anti-developer politics of the left in many American cities. From appearing on Known YIMBY Derek Thompson’s podcast Plain English to signing on to an amicus brief supporting the City of Yes, the early signs are strong. Mamdani has a rare skill at talking about lofty progressive goals with a rhetorical flair that makes folks pay attention.
I’m speaking, of course, about halalflation.
“New York is suffering from a crisis and it’s called halalflation,” Mamdani said in a viral campaign ad. “Chicken over rice now costs $10 or more. It’s time to make halal eight bucks again.”
Mamdani’s diagnosis would make any Free Market Economist sing: the city is giving out too few permits to operate food trucks, which means that a secondary market has developed in which a permit can go for astronomical prices, costs that are passed on to consumers. Artificial scarcity is bad for consumers! Who knew!?
It’s a point that many people agree on, even if they have different words for it. Libertarians call it excessive regulation. The left calls it greedy speculation. But Mamdani doesn’t get into all that. He just calls it bullshit in terms any regular person can understand. “How much do you have to pay for your permit?” is a question I wish every local politician would ask about all kinds of things.
Where his real genius lies is that he does not come off like a technocrat. By connecting policymaking to everyday issues in a way that anyone could understand, Mamdani shows how important it is to make people feel the truth. You can’t just wave a chart around about excessive permitting timelines. You have to make them care about the person feeling the crunch.
YIMBYs should pay a lot of attention to the deft way Mamdani humanizes permitting reform. It’s something we highlight in a lot of our training, but it’s worth pointing at over and over again.
We know that the logic that drives up the cost of plates of chicken and rice is the exact same one that drives up the cost of housing. The city issues a limited number of food truck permits. The permit holders sell them to food truck operators for jacked-up prices, extracting money from hard-working New Yorkers.
On the off-chance you’ve somehow missed my point: holding back housing supply with onerous permitting does the same thing.
So, if you want to be the next Mamdani, how about a video about housing permitting?
My hope is the Mamdani is intelligent enough to understand what policies have a chance of actually improving the problems he cares about, and young enough that he's not forced into pandering to a million vested interests like other would-be mayors.
A good portion of his policy aims, like freezing the rent and city-run grocery stores aren't great, but if we're lucky they're mostly just rhetoric to get him elected. It would be really great if he moderated some of the policies that are good for rent-stabilized apartments and bad for everyone else, while aggressively pursuing policies that would actually mitigate the problem, like creating incentives to rent vacant apartments, reducing restrictive permitting and zoning and identifying specific vested interests, like the people who own the food truck permits, and smashing their rackets.