Tempest: For those tracking the housing issue during the election campaign, there were at least two notable moments pre-election which presaged Mayor Mamdani’s emerging housing policy. A “technocratic pivot” to a stated openness to working with private, for-profit developers, and, as your article details, the late endorsement of three ballot measures that had been proposed by Mayor Adams’ charter revision commission and which were meant to fast-track the construction of “affordable” housing. In backing the ballot measures, Mamdani lined up with significant forces within the mainstream of the Democratic Party, including Andrew Cuomo and Governor Kathy Hochul, as well as private developers and real estate industry advocacy groups. How do you assess these developments? Why the evolution within the campaign, including the very last minute endorsement of the ultimately successful ballot measures?
Ben Rosenfield and Holden Taylor: First, it’s important to note that the framing of ballot proposals 2-4 necessarily narrowed and abstracted the processes, dynamics, and relationships underlying the crisis tenants in New York City have been facing for years. The framing of the proposals was such that a ‘yes’ vote meant making changes to the status quo, whereas a ‘no’ vote meant a continuation of the status quo. In the context of an ongoing crisis, it’s easy to see why many may have thought or felt that some change is better than no change.
The problem is that this isn’t the case, and the aim of proposals 2-4, namely to build more and build faster, does nothing to empower tenants or create actual affordable housing. On the contrary, the proposals will not only give more power to the Mayor (Mamdani and future Mayors), but also a gift to developers and real estate more generally. Increased production (and the fast-tracking of said production) does nothing in and of itself to address the current crisis; the logic that it does is based in supply/demand economics.
It’s not particularly surprising that Mamdani ultimately came out in favor of these proposals. First, the proposals will facilitate the implementation and realization of his campaign goals. His campaign platform, released on February 3rd, 2025, mentions “creating 200,000 new units over the next 10 years, fast-tracking affordable developments, and increasing zoned capacity.” His goals and the aim of these ballot measures are entirely consistent with one another.
Secondly, a no vote would have pitted Mamdani against not only developers and real estate, who unsurprisingly were deeply in favor of these measures, but also, crucially, the right-wing of the socialist tenant movement in New York City, which is the pole that is most in line with Mamdani’s politics. Whereas in the past the socialist tenant movement would have been less likely to support these proposals, there is a growing ‘yimby socialist’ whose power and influence has been increasing. While the politics and ideology of this pole are not entirely hegemonic in the movement, they have taken advantage of the relative weakness of the autonomous and more radical wing of the movement. Accordingly, Mamdani had the backing of a not insignificant portion (in size and influence) of the socialist tenant movement in supporting the ballot measures.
Tempest: One of the targets of your article is what you describe as YIMBYism (“yes in my back yard”). It argues for an imperative on building more and more housing and that “obstacles to construction are problems to be solved, removed, or overcome…the target is “red tape”—a catchall term for any policy or state mediation that prevents construction.” You describe YIMBYism being adopted wholesale by social democrats and the right-wing of DSA whose theory of change rests on its belief that effectively administering the bourgeois state at various levels via governing coalitions and pressure campaigns will gradually improve material conditions for a broad sector of working people, thereby winning working class favor, thereby making more significant reforms possible. In the specific context of NYC’s housing crisis what is wrong with this approach?
BR & HT: A comrade puts it simply: “The fundamental division in the housing debate is not whether you support or oppose higher density, but if you view the market as the solution to the housing crisis or as the cause of it.” We’ve showed how the “affordable housing” that gets built through the market a) is not affordable and b) does not bolster our class power, our working-class organizations, whatsoever. Socialism is the double movement of improving our conditions and our class power.
Tempest: You clearly, if depressingly, chart the lines of continuity between the emergent housing policy of Mamdani and his two predecessors as Mayor (Adams and DeBlasio). You specifically point to: zoning and charter changes that further entrench market frameworks and “solutions”; a continuity of personnel (for example, Leila Bozorg the executive director of housing in the Mayor’s office under Eric Adams will serve as Mamdani’s deputy mayor for housing and planning); and a policy focus on the production of housing stock for middle-income and higher income New Yorkers resulting in less production or rental stock for more vulnerable, lower income NYers. Is it still possible for Mamdani to chart a different path? What do you see as the best ways to fight for an alternative housing policy?
BR & HT: The possibilities for Mamdani to chart a different path largely, if not entirely, depend on the ability of the autonomous/radical wing of the socialist tenant movement to put forth a clear and compelling alternative to that of the status quo generally and the YIMBY socialists more specifically. In order to accomplish this, we will need to (continue to) organize and build power in the movement so that those both inside and outside of the socialist tenant movement will have to engage and contend more seriously with our politics, ideas, and strategies.
In the article we spend only one paragraph (out of so many!) discussing where Zohran may mark a break from the past. This brevity is in part because those breaks–which are concerned more with the city government’s relationship to working-class and community organizations and the ‘masses’ than the capital-intensive world of real estate development–are still very much taking form. But the brevity is also because this was a point on which we disagreed most thoroughly.
Ben, for example, is much more skeptical regarding the possibilities of Zohran’s Office to Protect Tenants and his Office of Mass Engagement as it relates to the development of working-class tenant self-activity and the construction of independent working-class organizations. For Ben, demobilization and cooptation are not merely possibilities the socialist tenant movement will face as it navigates its relationship with the Mamdani administration–they are likely outcomes if the movement is not intentional regarding its strategy and politics and how it builds power. The movement is still relatively weak and lacks developed organizations and infrastructures; while there is exciting and meaningful organizing happening on these fronts, this reality increases the temptation of hitching our wagon to the Mamdani administration in a way that will undercut the very important work the movement is doing. This is not to say that we should not engage with these projects, but rather are an attempt to emphasize the importance of independence and autonomy as we navigate the contradictory terrain moving forward.
Holden thinks there are novel opportunities ahead, and that these offices–and the administration more broadly–might offer strategic tools. For example, the Office of Mass Engagement contacted thousands of Pinnacle tenants and gathered hundreds of them onto one call with the Mayor. While this obviously doesn’t equate to militant self-activity, it did give Union of Pinnacle Tenant organizers the opportunity to bring in dozens of tenant leaders into the union. It is a tricky balance, navigating these opportunities while maintaining class independence but it is, in Holden’s estimation, what must be done. But! As we say in the piece, there is the monumental risk (to take Ben’s view), of these offices to function as social justice veneers to a fundamental project of market entrenchment.
In short, we (Ben and Holden) agree that the Mamdani administration will present opportunities, obstacles, and dangers for the socialist tenant movement. We disagree, perhaps, on what exactly the balance sheet looks like and to what extent we should engage with the administration and its projects. We will have more substance to concretely engage with and struggle over as we move forward.
In the article, we outline four planks of a prospective program that the socialist tenant movement can and should cohere around; an immediate eviction moratorium, the expansion of rent stabilization, tenant-led, democratic expropriation, and the preservation and expansion of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Some of these will be more difficult to win than others, and some will be more palatable to both Mamdani and the right-wing of the socialist tenant movement.
Tempest: You argue that on the housing question, most socialists agree that our end goal should be decommodified, publicly-owned, democratically-controlled housing for all. Is this a goal that is shared by the Mamdani administration? In other words, is it an issue of strategic differences among socialists, i.e. how we get there, or is there a different goal being prepared by Mamdani?
BR & HT: This is not the goal of the Mamdani administration. It may be what he personally desires, but, as we know, he and his administration will have to navigate the limitations and contradictions of the capitalist city and state. Mamdani will advocate for and support reforms, some of which will have the ability to meaningfully materially improve the conditions that tenants in New York City face. That said, their goal is not to completely transform the state of housing and tenancy, and even if it were they are not in a position to be able to do so.
I think the majority of the socialist tenant movement (both the left and right poles) embrace this goal in theory. In practice, however, we argue that embracing yimbyism is simply incompatible with the realization of these goals.
Accordingly, it is our task as the left-wing of the socialist tenant movement to organize with the aim of building power and popularizing our strategies and politics such that they become hegemonic within the movement. The development of independent organizations committed to class struggle will be both the means and the end to carrying out this task.
It is our task to recenter and redefine what is possible for our movement and what our north star should be (decommodified, publicly-owned, democratically-controlled housing for all); to create a compelling, genuine alternative around which the movement rallies and coheres.
Tempest: Especially for those outside the day-to-day activism and organizing of the tenants’ movement, your article provides a much appreciated deep-dive into the political dynamics, tensions, and developments within this movement in NYC, including its different organizational forms and competing strategic outlooks. How would you draw a balance sheet to assess the impact of the Mamdani campaign and his election on this movement?
BR & HT: There’s a double movement; on one hand, there’s this tidal wave of the tenant-as-political-actor–which is something to channel and cultivate. On the other hand, we have nonprofit directors celebrating the moment as the horizon has been reached–on a recent coalition call, one director declared outright that “mass governance is here.” Sobriety is the remedy.
I think, if anything, within the left flank of the tenant movement there’s been a maturation, both in orientation and politics. Zohran’s election has raised the stakes for what we do. There are more eyes watching but also more people dedicating their energies to these efforts. There is, in this movement, more clarity in what matters and what doesn’t–and I think there is also trust among the different factions that our future is shared. Though there are political differences–as there is in any formation of any consequence–I think they are subordinated to a shared structural analysis, at least on the Left. How this Left asserts itself, both amid the broader housing movement coalitions as well as independent actors on their own, is incredibly consequential. Because of the right of the movement’s submission to the administration, there are crucial openings for political leadership by the Left, by the rooted and grounded. This right-wing, the non-profit coalition, will hesitate to critique or clash with Zohran, and will be nervous to be seen undermining his agenda. But there are issues that necessitate this; particularly, the questions of the Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea Houses (their demolition, conversion from Section 9 to Section 8) and, as we articulate in our article, pushing for an eviction moratorium until ICE leaves the city. These issues expose the contradictions of municipal socialism.
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Featured Image credit: SnippyHolloW; modified by Tempest.
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