Mamdani Plans To Make NYC A More Affordable City To Live In. Here's How

Zohran Mamdani captured the nation's attention in July of 2025 when he won New York City's Democratic mayoral primary. The 33-year-old assemblyman's upset victory led one opponent, disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, to register as an independent and challenge him in the general election. Cuomo's campaign continues to trail behind, saddled by Republican opponent Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani's other general election challenger, incumbent mayor Eric Adams, dropped out in late-September amid dismal polling. The New York City mayoral election is scheduled for November 4, 2025, but early voting begins on October 25 and runs through November 2.

Commentators have credited the democratic socialist's unprecedented success over party insiders to his social media outreach and his base's aggressive canvassing efforts, but what truly distinguishes Mamdani are his overwhelmingly popular policy initiatives. The campaign has focused on making the city more affordable for working class New Yorkers by freezing the rent, building more low-income housing with union labor, and providing free buses and childcare to all residents. This message clearly resonated with New Yorkers, considering that Mamdani won the democratic nomination with more primary votes than any candidate in the city's history. Mamdani has not only received endorsements from political figures such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Jerry Nadler, but also a slew of progressive-leaning celebrities like model Emily Ratikowski and two-time Grammy winning musician Lorde.

Mamdani says his initiatives will help all renters and also fix the problem of homelessness, which  doubled over the course of Adams' term as mayor. "Too often we think of homelessness as if it is natural, as if it is innate. It's a political choice," Mamdani said in a campaign video released this month (via YouTube). "We need to build more housing, and we also need to make sure that for the public sector, the housing we are building is immediately affordable."

New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the United States in major part because its average rent is nearly double the national average. Even the city's so-called "affordable housing" units can cost up to $3,500 a month. Zohran Mamdani promises to freeze the rent on day one for over 2 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments.

New York City has struggled to build low-income housing for decades, which has resulted in extremely competitive lotteries for often rundown units. But Mamdani plans to shift the status quo through a restructuring of the city's housing policy. This plan will prioritize the construction of union-built housing for low-income seniors as well as families of four who earn less than $72,000 a year. In contrast to the policies of Mayor Adams' administration, Mamdani says he will increase funding and staffing for existing agencies to build 200,000 new units over the next decade. The mayoral frontrunner intends to finance this building project by raising $70 billion on the municipal bond market.

The campaign also says it will provide universal childcare, free buses, and at least one public grocery store for each borough. To fund these programs, the mayoral hopeful promises to levy a 2% increase on income tax for residents who make more than a million dollars annually. The campaign also plans to raise the top corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5%, which would be equal to New Jersey's top rate. Some critics argue that this tax rate will push out wealthy New Yorkers, but Mamdani is confident they will stay. "The reason I believe they will keep doing business here is that this is one of the largest economies in the world," Mamdani told the panel of "The View" (via YouTube) at the beginning of October. "Everyone wants to be here."

Like many New Yorkers, Zohran Mamdani is not originally from the city. He was born in Uganda, lived in Cape Town, South Africa, for a brief period, and ultimately moved with his family to Manhattan at the age of 7. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a postcolonialist academic who teaches at Columbia University, and his mother, Mira Nair, is an Indian-American filmmaker who has directed critically acclaimed works such as "Monsoon Wedding" and "Mississippi Masala." The future mayoral-hopeful played cricket and soccer during his adolescence. He attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and later Bowdoin College, where he founded his school's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Mamdani graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in Africana studies.

Following college, Mamdani worked as a foreclosure prevention and housing counselor, tending a hip-hop career on the side. He went on to volunteer with the 2017 city council campaign of Khader El-Yateem, a Lutheran pastor and organizer for the Democratic Socialists of America, and then managed novelist Ross Barkan's 2018 state senate run. Mamdani's own political career took off in 2020 when he won a race to represent New York's 36th State Assembly district, defeating a five-term incumbent. In the following two races – one in 2022and another in 2024– he ran without opposition. 

The assemblyman's stated goal has always been to prevent working-class New Yorkers from being pushed out to less expensive cities. Since taking office, he has led a successful 15-day hunger strike to achieve $450 million in debt relief for taxi drivers and also secured $100 million in the state budget for a fare-free bus pilot and increased subway service, according to his campaign page.