New York City’s new mayor wasted no time easing into the job. Within hours of taking office, Zohran Mamdani put pen to paper and signed his first executive orders, making it clear that his campaign promises were not rhetorical flourishes but a governing blueprint. The message was unmistakable: the era of cautious, incremental housing reform was over, and City Hall was choosing sides.
At the center of Mamdani’s opening moves was housing—specifically, the crushing cost of rent that has reshaped life in New York for decades. For millions of tenants, housing has become a monthly gamble between stability and displacement. For landlords and real estate investors, it has long been a lucrative system protected by complexity, influence, and political inertia. Mamdani’s first day suggested that balance was about to be disrupted. Continue reading…
