Let the natural experiment in Democratic governance begin
The socialist Zohran Mamdani and centrist Daniel Lurie offer two possible futures for the party.
With Zohran Mamdani’s improbable election as mayor of New York, a real-time experiment begins. On Jan. 1, when New York’s mayor is inaugurated, the Democratic leaders of two of the country’s most prominent cities, Mamdani’s New York and Mayor Daniel Lurie’s San Francisco, will be pursuing nearly diametrically opposed agendas, both within the rubric of solidly blue metropolises.
It’s an opportunity for a head-to-head comparison of their approaches, Lurie’s a centrist, business-friendly orientation and Mamdani’s a democratic-socialist perspective — and a window into two possible futures of the Democratic Party.
For all their striking ideological differences, Mamdani and Lurie have a tremendous amount in common. Both are scions of privilege who bring little political experience to their jobs. The 34-year-old Mamdani, the progeny of a noted academic and an accomplished filmmaker, has been a state lawmaker for all of four years. Lurie, 48, grew up wealthy after his mother married Peter Haas, an heir to the Levi Strauss blue jeans dynasty. Before becoming mayor in January, Lurie had founded an anti-poverty nonprofit but had never held elected office.
Mamdani and Lurie both went to exclusive schools. Both are social-media savvy: Mamdani has captivated young voters with his TikTok videos, including one of his fully suited plunge into a frigid Atlantic Ocean to illustrate his vow to freeze rents. Lurie strikes an upbeat dad vibe with his popular Instagram posts of him popping up at restaurants and cultural events around town. Even their appearances share a vibe: Though Lurie is clean-shaven and Mamdani wears a beard, both favor dark, slim-fitting suits, simple ties and sunny dispositions.
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That’s where the similarities end.
Mamdani has drawn attention for his past disparagement of the New York Police Department, calling for their defunding, a position he has backed away from since becoming his party’s nominee. He now says he wants to keep police levels constant and is hoping to retain the city’s law-and-order police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. But he wants to relieve officers of some of their non-policing duties, such as dealing with the homeless.
In contrast, Lurie came into office in January pledging to add to San Francisco’s police force, bolstering the output of its academy and generally enforcing order on the city’s streets. He is popular with cops, and he has noted the recent lows in homicides and car break-ins.
The two politicians approach housing affordability, a problem in both cities, from opposite directions, too. Both cities have vast homeless populations. Mamdani has made rent-stabilization of existing rent-controlled apartments a pillar of his campaign, antagonizing landlords. Lurie has tapped his network of wealthy individuals to raise funds for shelter beds. He is also pushing a controversial, state-mandated plan to rezone large swaths of the city for greater density, which a coalition of single-family homeowners and preservationists see as a sop to developers.
The two are a continent apart on their taxation policies as well. Lurie came into office promising to make things easier for business, supporting a recent measure to lower business taxes and otherwise working hard to attract enterprise and cut red tape. He constantly declares San Francisco “open for business” and has encouraged conventions and individuals to return to the city. Mamdani advocates raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, one reason his richer, mouthier detractors have said his election will cause them to flee the city.
And on mass transit, too, Mamdani and Lurie are following different paths. Ridership on San Francisco’s two major transit systems, known as Muni and BART, took major hits during the covid-19 pandemic, and both agencies are running severe deficits. Lurie is supportive of two ballot measures, one at the state level and another in the Bay Area, to raise funds to shore up the agencies’ finances, recognizing its importance to revitalizing his city’s downtown.
Mamdani, on the other hand, has received plenty of attention for his plan to make all city buses free. Never mind that to do this he’d need the support of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), which she hasn’t offered. That he wants to end fares on buses — and also to operate city-owned grocery stores — shows his socialist stripes. Where Lurie cites healthy mass transportation systems as an economic-development prerequisite, Mamdani highlights the burden of pricey transit on workers.
Beyond policies, important stylistic differences separate the two Democratic leaders. Mamdani, who is Muslim, is a vocal advocate for Palestinians and an equally vociferous critic of Israel. This is no small matter in such a heavily Jewish city, where pro-Israel stances long were the norm for politicians. Lurie, who is Jewish, has stuck almost comically to a practice of avoiding any issue that isn’t specifically about San Francisco, most notably refusing to utter the words “Donald Trump” in public.
It isn’t a given that because Lurie and Mamdani will govern so differently that one will succeed and the other will fail. It’s altogether possible that San Francisco, which has suffered from slow-growth economic policies and permissive approaches to law enforcement, will thrive under Lurie and that New York’s yawning inequality gap will narrow under Mamdani without killing the city’s economic vibrancy. Their backers no doubt hope that each offers the right policy prescriptions for the problems of their respective cities. Whatever the result, the two towns will give political theorists an opportunity to leave the lab and observe the reality playing out before them.
What readers are saying
The conversation explores the contrasting approaches to policing and governance by Zohran Mamdani in New York and Daniel Lurie in San Francisco. Participants discuss the unique challenges and cultural differences between the two cities, emphasizing that what works in one may not... Show more
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