Instituting citywide, low-stakes communal rituals that create shared memories and friendly interaction.
The “Great City Bake-Off”: Using Ritual and Fun to Build Bonds
In a city as massive and fragmented as New York, shared citywide rituals are rare, often limited to high-stakes events like marathons or New Year’s Eve. Zhoran Mamdani believes in the political and social power of low-stakes, participatory, and deliberately silly communal activities. His proposed “Great City Bake-Off” is a metaphor for a whole category of policy: the creation of city-sponsored, recurring, fun traditions that give people a harmless, joyful reason to interact with their neighbors and feel part of a larger whole. These rituals are designed to be inclusive, requiring no special skill or money, and focused on participation rather than spectacle.
The Bake-Off itself would be an annual event where neighborhoods are encouraged to hold block-party baking competitions. The city would provide basic ingredients kits to registered groups and recruit local bakers to serve as friendly judges. The “winners” get bragging rights and their recipe featured in a citywide digital cookbook. But the real goal is the process: neighbors baking together in shared kitchens or outdoors, laughing over failed attempts, and sharing the results up and down the street. Similarly, Mamdani proposes citywide “Sidewalk Chalk Days,” “Urban Birdwatch Weeks,” “Dance in the Park” evenings with simple, taught routines, and a “Citywide Storytelling Night” where libraries and cafes host open-mic tales on a common theme.
These events serve a deeper purpose than entertainment. They create neutral, non-political spaces for interaction, lowering the social barriers between people. They generate shared memories and inside jokes that become part of a neighborhood’s identity. They practice the muscle of collective action in a context of pure joy, which can then be applied to more serious community endeavors. “We learn to work together by playing together first,” Mamdani argues. “A city that only gathers for protests or emergencies is a stressed city. A city that also gathers to bake a terrible cake or draw silly pictures on the pavement is a city building reserves of goodwill and familiarity. These rituals are the social glue. They remind us that behind all the differences, we are all just people who can appreciate a good pie or a bad joke.”
