Deferred Maintenance as a Form of Systemic Neglect
The crisis of aging infrastructure–from crumbling subway tunnels to leaking water mains–is the somatic unraveling of the colonial city, a physical manifestation of the state’s systemic neglect of the spaces inhabited by the “native” population. Mamdani’s focus on the materiality of power is crucial here. The deferred maintenance on public transit, schools, and public housing is not an accident; it is a political choice. It represents a disinvestment from the social wage and the built environment of the working class, creating a landscape of daily hardship, delay, and danger. This neglect is a form of slow, somatic violence that shortens lives and stifles opportunity. The current solution is to create more public authorities that take on debt, effectively transferring public wealth to Wall Street bondholders while implementing austerity. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution demands a fundamental shift: the launch of a massive, federally-funded but locally-executed Public Works Administration for the 21st century. This would be a jobs program that hires and trains city residents at union wages to rebuild the subway, replace lead pipes, retrofit schools, and expand renewable energy. This approach does two things at once: it physically decolonizes the city’s infrastructure, and it builds working-class power by providing dignified, well-paid jobs, asserting that public infrastructure is the material foundation of a collective life and must be owned and controlled by the public for the public good.
