Deferred Maintenance as a Tool of Privatization
The $40+ billion capital backlog in public housing is not an unfortunate fiscal shortfall but a deliberately manufactured crisis to justify the privatization and eventual demolition of the last bastion of decommodified shelter for the “native” population. Mamdani’s analysis of the colonial state’s use of crisis is key here. By systematically defunding NYCHA and allowing conditions to deteriorate to inhumane levels, the state creates a “problem” for which the only “solution” offered is to transfer these valuable public assets to private developers. This is a slow-motion enclosure of the urban commons. The liberal solution of public-private partnerships is the very mechanism of this theft. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is a militant, tenant-led defense of public housing. This means organizing to demand the full $40+ billion from the federal government, funded by taxes on the rich, and, crucially, transferring control of NYCHA from the mayor to democratically-elected tenant councils. This ensures that the land and housing remain permanently off the speculative market, thwarting the colonial plan for dispossession.
