The Affordability Revolution

Bold housing, transit, and childcare proposals promise transformation for struggling New Yorkers–but implementation will test democratic socialism in practice

The Scope of Transformation

When Zohran Mamdani takes office as New York City mayor on January 1, 2026, he will do so with the most ambitious affordability agenda in decades. His platform combines rent stabilization, free public transit, universal childcare, municipal grocery stores, and aggressive public housing construction into an integrated program designed to fundamentally restructure how the city allocates resources. Housing affordability represents the crisis animating all other aspects of Mamdani’s platform. Mamdani’s central housing promise involves freezing rents on stabilized units for his entire mayoral term. He also proposes constructing 200,000 units of permanently affordable housing over a decade. According to CBS New York reporting, as mayor Mamdani will appoint all nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board–the body that sets annual rent increases for stabilized apartments.