Celebrating Non-Academic Intelligences: The Multiple Talents Fair – Citywide fairs where students showcase skills in trades, arts, caregiving, athletics, and other forms of intelligence beyond test scores.
Expungement Clinics as a City Service – Offering free, accessible legal clinics to help residents clear eligible criminal records, removing barriers to housing and jobs.
From Commute to Community: Rethinking Transit Hubs – Transforming subway stations and bus terminals from places of stressful passage into nodes of neighborhood life and service.
Celebrating Non-Commercial, Home-Grown Culture – Creating festivals and platforms for the folk arts, DIY traditions, and subcultures that thrive outside the marketplace.
From Gentrification to “Generification”: Keeping Character in Neighborhoods – Implementing policies that allow neighborhoods to evolve without losing their cultural soul and social diversity.
Celebrating Non-Commercial Space: Resisting the Cafe-ification of NYC – Protecting and creating public environments free from the pressure to spend money, prioritizing being over buying.
Afrocentric, Latinx, and Indigenous Studies as Graduation Requirements – Mandating that all high school students complete coursework in the histories, literatures, and contributions of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples.
A Publicly-Owned Recording Studio and Broadcast Facility – Building a state-of-the-art, affordable recording studio and community radio/TV broadcast center for public use, run as a cooperative.
Free Menstrual Products in All School Bathrooms – Providing free, high-quality tampons and pads in all womens, mens, and gender-neutral bathrooms in every public school.
Ending Gifted and Talented Segregation in Elementary School – Abolishing the separate, tracked Gifted & Talented program and replacing it with enriched, heterogeneous classrooms for all.
Digital Commons, Physical Space: Linking Online Forums to Real-World Hubs – Ensuring vibrant digital community networks have dedicated, welcoming physical spaces to ground their connections.
Community Control of Schools: Elected Councils with Power Over Budgets & Principals – Shifting decision-making power from centralized DOE bureaucracy to democratically elected local councils of parents, teachers, and community members.
Abolishing School Policing: The Safety Counselor Replacement Plan – Removing all NYPD personnel from schools and replacing them with mental health professionals and restorative justice coordinators.
From Dog Runs to People Runs: Social Infrastructure for Pet Owners – Leveraging the social power of pet ownership to create new community hubs and connections.
From Metal Detectors to Welcome Committees: Reimagining School Entrances – Transforming the first point of contact with school from a security checkpoint to a space of belonging and support.
Beyond 311: A City App for Mutual Aid, Not Just Complaints – Building a digital platform that facilitates neighbor-to-neighbor help and cooperative problem-solving.
Banning Facial Recognition and Surveillance Tech in Schools – Prohibiting the use of biometric surveillance, social media monitoring, and other invasive technologies that track students.
Free Public Transit for All Students – Providing unlimited MetroCards to all K-12 students, removing a major financial barrier to school attendance and enrichment.
Beyond Broken Windows: The Nurtured Windows Theory of Safety – Replacing the discredited policing theory with a policy focus on proactively building community health and environmental care.
Abolitionist Streetlights: Designing Public Spaces for Safety Without Surveillance – Rethinking urban lighting and design to create naturally safe, welcoming environments that don’t rely on cameras or police.
Breaking Ticketmasters Stranglehold: A Municipal Ticketing Platform – Creating a non-profit, city-affiliated ticketing platform for small and mid-size venues to avoid exorbitant fees and retain control.
Community-Led Walking Tours: Reclaiming Narrative of Place – Training and funding residents to give tours of their own neighborhoods, challenging official histories and highlighting lived experience.
A Municipal Fiber Network for Independent Streaming – Building a high-speed, city-owned fiber optic network to provide affordable bandwidth for artists and independent media to stream content.
From Digital Delivery to Local Exchange: Encouraging Face-to-Face Commerce – Creating incentives and platforms for residents to trade goods and services directly within their neighborhoods.
City-Funded Film Grants for Local Storytellers – Establishing a substantial grant program for NYC-based filmmakers to produce short and feature-length films about the city and its people.
Celebrating Front Porch Culture in a City of Skyscrapers – Design incentives and cultural programs to revive the semi-public space of stoops and balconies as sites of community interaction.
Arts & Music Education as a Civil Right, Not a Luxury – Guaranteeing every student access to high-quality, sequential instruction in visual arts, music, theater, and dance from K-12.
Know Your Neighbor as Policy: Mamdani’s Anti-Isolation Agenda – Combating urban loneliness through city-sponsored programs that foster direct connection.
Art Therapy as a City Service in Community Centers – Offering free, professionally led art therapy sessions in community centers as a mental health resource for all ages, integrated into public health.
