Zohran Mamdani is promising lots of things he can’t actually do

Like many politicians running for office, Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old New York Democratic mayoral candidate, is partly a fabulist. His story includes tax rises on the wealthy and businesses, free buses, free child care and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. Whether or not these are good ideas, most have as little likelihood of becoming tangible as one of Italo Calvino’s odd, enchanting, invisible cities.

Some of the world’s great cities have powerful mayors. A mayor of Mexico City legalised abortion and introduced gay marriage. The mayor of Buenos Aires introduced free bus and subway rides for low-income seniors on his own authority. Germany’s capital, Berlin, is both a city and a state: its mayor has a role in passing federal legislation. At the other end of the scale is Paris (see chart). New York’s mayor sits somewhere in the middle of the power ranking.

New York City has the economy of a medium-sized nation: in 2024, its gdp of $1.3trn was double Argentina’s and greater than that of all but 16 countries. Yet it is also a municipality beholden to the state’s governor and to state law. The city’s charter, issued by the state, grants “home rule” by a chief-executive mayor and legislative body—a relatively weak City Council—but the state retains ultimate authority.

To pay for his plans, Mr Mamdani proposes two tax hikes: an additional tax of 2% on incomes of more than $1m a year, and raising the top state corporate-tax rate to 11.5%, from 7.25%. (This reckoning is misleading: New York companies already pay additional taxes that bring their total rate to 17.5%, according to Ana Champeny, of the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog.) Mr Mamdani’s campaign says those increases would yield $4bn and $5bn respectively. But in any case his tax plans are moot. Mayors cannot set income or business taxes. Increasing them would require the state legislature to act, plus the governor’s signature. And Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor, has already ruled the idea a nonstarter. “I’m not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue,” she has said.

The new mayor will need to propose a budget one month after taking office in January, when he will face an immediate shortfall of $6bn-8bn, according to Ms Champeny. The city may also lose out from an expected $3bn cut in federal grants to the state, she says. Without the tax increases he is powerless to effect, Mr Mamdani would face a $15bn-17bn shortfall in his spending plans. The real debate will not be over what to spend, but what to cut.

A quarter of New York City’s budget comes from either the federal government (10%) or the state government (17%), notes Enid Slack, an expert in municipal finance at the University of Toronto School of Cities. “These transfers...have to be spent on what the federal and state government said they have to be spent on,” she says. “So not a lot of local autonomy.”

Over rent, buses and the minimum wage, New York’s mayor also has limited control. He appoints a board that sets the rent for 50% of rented flats, the rent-stabilised ones. But boards don’t necessarily do the mayor’s bidding. The board voted 5-4 in June to raise rents on one-year leases by 3% and on two-year leases by 4.5%, ignoring pleas by Eric Adams, the current mayor, for lower increases. Mr Mamdani also wants to build 200,000 units of affordable housing by borrowing $70bn. That would exceed the debt limit by $30bn—and therefore would require state approval.

As for making buses free, that is a call for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (mta) board, to which the mayor can recommend only four of 23 members. The mta says that free buses could mean worse service, and that 44% of bus riders already evade paying their fares.

One curious dimension of Mr Mamdani’s campaign is that, even as he promises to accomplish things outside his authority, he is seeking to surrender what other mayors have regarded as an important power: authority over the school system (and with it, perhaps, accountability for the quality of education). Mr Mamdani wants to give that power to a mayor-appointed board. Making such a change would be up to the state legislature, not him.

When it comes to the police, though, the mayoral handcuffs come off. nyc’s mayor appoints the commissioner, can expand or cut the force and influences its methods. Conservatives and moderates have drawn attention to Mr Mamdani’s past calls to defund the police and eliminate the prison system. He has dialled that down, but still plans to disband a unit that breaks up protests; reduce police involvement in emergencies (giving a bigger role to mental-health workers); and cut overtime. He would have the power to do all of this. “The mayor can [also] refuse to send the nypd to Columbia in response to calls to arrest protesters or take down encampments,” notes Mitchell Moss of New York University.

None of this is to downplay the importance of the office. A determined mayor who masters detail and knows how to exercise power can do a lot of good. Michael Bloomberg, the city’s best mayor in recent memory, oversaw a 32% fall in crime between 2001 and 2013 and rezoned 40% of the city. In some ways New York is still living off his achievements. But the risk from electing a mayor with a vivid imagination is limited. Which, given some of Mr Mamdani’s instincts, may be a relief. ■