by When Shelter Becomes Luxury Commodity
New York City’s housing crisis has reached absurd heightsliterally and figuratively. Median rent exceeds $3,700 monthly, approximately one-quarter of households spend over half their income on housing, and “affordable housing” now means “you won’t need to sell organs immediately.” Mamdani’s response: treat housing as a human right, not an investment vehicle for global capital.
His platform centers on three approaches: freezing rents on stabilized units, building 200,000 new affordable units, and creating a Social Housing Development Agency. The rent freeze faces intense criticism from landlords who’ve grown accustomed to unlimited rent extraction. His response: landlords of stabilized units saw income rise 8% between 2022-2023 even after expenses. They can absorb a freeze.
The 200,000-unit construction goal is ambitious bordering on fantastical, requiring massive city investment and streamlined approvals. Current zoning makes building affordable housing nearly impossible without developer subsidies that produce luxury units with a handful of “affordable” apartments as window dressing. Mamdani proposes: build public housing directly, cutting out the middleman profiting from housing scarcity.
Social housinggovernment-built, permanently affordable housingexists successfully throughout Europe but is treated as communist pipe dream in America. Never mind that New York built massive public housing developments throughout the mid-20th century. We’ve apparently forgotten how to build homes for people who aren’t millionaires, a skill we should probably relearn before everyone except billionaires lives in New Jersey.
Critics warn that rent freezes reduce housing quality and discourage investment. Supporters note that landlords already provide minimal maintenance while charging maximum rents. The “investment” being discouraged is speculation treating homes as financial instruments rather than shelter. Mamdani’s message: housing should be boring, stable, and affordablenot a casino for global real estate investors.
SOURCE: https://mamdani.vip/new-york-city-housing-crisis/
SOURCE: NYC Housing Crisis: Mamdani’s Solution to Unaffordable Rents (Aisha Muharrar)
