After months of hearing chatter about Abundance, I finally decided to listen to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s hit book. What I heard was a hopeful message for the future that resonates with voters. The Democratic Party, however, has been hesitant to embrace the book’s critiques of a liberal governance that prioritizes rules over outcomes. One politician who is not shy about supporting the kind of popular affordability agenda that Abundance advocates for is the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani is a youthful and gregarious New York State representative for Queens’ 36th district, whose smile, charm, and PR acumen rival those of President Obama. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, ran on a popular message — “a New York you can afford” — advocating for government intervention to reduce the cost of living and improve public services. The Abundance-adjacent message resonates with New Yorkers who pay astronomical rent and wait up to 15 minutes for the bus, despite high local taxes.
Per Fast Company, Mamdani’s campaign poster broke all the rules of political aesthetics.
Mamdani — or “Zohran,” as he calls himself in his campaign poster, featuring bold primary colors and 1970s fonts — speaks to the quality of life issues that win elections. When asked if he supports the Abundance agenda, he said, “There’s a lot that conversation has brought.” In June, he even told Derek Thompson on his Plain English podcast that he now embraces an “abundance agenda.” As much as Mamdani’s heart is in the right place, his youthful idealism drives him toward simple and counterproductive solutions that relate to affordability but do not embrace the reforms to liberal governance that Abundance recommends.
The crisis of local governance that Klein et al. highlight in the book is essentially that property owners, activists, and leaders in blue cities and states have erected too many obstacles to economic growth and infrastructure development, causing the prices of housing, medicine, and education to soar. At the same time, public services have been hindered by cumbersome and often redundant environmental, safety, and zoning regulations.
To Mamdani’s credit, he does support some deregulation, such as loosening building restrictions near transportation hubs and streamlining the application process for opening a business in New York City. But proposing a handful of good ideas does not excuse bad ones. Mamdani’s most counterproductive idea is to introduce a freeze on rent for all of New York City’s nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. While this may provide immediate relief for some New Yorkers, its long-term unintended consequences would worsen the very quality of life issues that clinched him the nomination.
The long-term outcome of a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments will be more expensive, non-rent-stabilized units for everyone else. Many renters in these units will want to stay in them due to the low cost, which reduces the number of regularly available affordable housing options. When rents are kept so low that landlords cannot recoup their investments in maintenance and necessary renovations, they are more likely to keep those apartments off the market to avoid losing money, thereby further reducing the supply of affordable housing.
A significant reason many American urbanites support increasing affordable housing is to reduce the homelessness epidemic that New Yorkers encounter every day when we walk outside. In Abundance, Klein examines the research on the causes of high rates of homelessness in different states.
He found that vulnerable people like addicts and the mentally ill are more likely to become homeless in places where housing is more expensive because it is more challenging for them to secure and maintain housing in those locales. Mandami’s plan to reduce housing costs, when it inevitably backfires, will probably exacerbate the homelessness crisis.
Mamdani proposes another solution to the shortage of affordable housing in New York City. He aims to construct 200,000 affordable housing units over the next decade. That’s right — he wants to build 200,000 units, not in one year or five years, but over ten years. Mamdani’s plan promises to remove bureaucratic hurdles to building affordable housing only if those units are union-built, rent-stabilized, and meet sustainability goals. He essentially introduces new regulatory hurdles to replace existing ones.
Mamdani taps into legitimate grievances that sting for New Yorkers, with a giant, toothy smile and a personal warmth that makes voters feel their guy will be in the mayor’s mansion. He misses, however, the policy nuance that makes the Abundance agenda workable. Instead, he advocates for easy-to-understand and straightforward ideas — many of which will actually make day-to-day life more expensive for my fellow New Yorkers.