Is Zohran Mamdani Coming Around to Housing Deregulation? |
Zohran Mamdani
Christian Britschgi | From the February/March 2026 issue
In the February/March 2026 issue of Reason, we explore Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's policy goals and what they mean for New York City. Click here to read the other entries.
A few weeks before the New York Democrats' mayoral primary, The New York Times asked Zohran Mamdani for something he had changed his mind on. The self-described socialist gave a surprising answer: "the role of the private market in housing construction."
Earlier in the race, Mamdani's messaging on housing had been in line with his leftist worldview. One of his chief campaign promises was to freeze rents on rent-stabilized housing units. His campaign platform bluntly declared that "we can't afford to wait for the private sector to solve [the housing] crisis." Yet here he was conceding that private builders had a role to play in bringing costs down and that the city should liberalize regulations to help them do that.
"I clearly recognize now that there is a very important........