artFter New York City’s Race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from one of the most prominent voices in the state, intense debate on the ideas at the center of his campaign.
His critics and opponents have painted promises like free bus service, universal childcare and unemployment benefits as unrealistic.
But others hit back, highlighting the quirk of geography that underlies this view. “He promised things that the Europeans were given, but the Americans were told was impossible,” said Dutch Environmentalist and former adviser Alexander Vereek.
Vereek supports this with a comment he overheard in an Oslo Café, where Mamdani was described as an American politician who was “the last” normal.
“Normal. That’s the word,” Verbeek wrote in his newsletter, the planet. “Here, taking care of each other through public programs is not radical socialism. It’s Tuesday.”
That view is struck by many differences in how Mamdani’s promises are perceived by many atlantics. “Europeans recognize his vision of free public transit and universal childcare. We expect our governments to make these services available to all,” Verebeek said. “We pay higher taxes and get civilized societies in return. The debate here is not whether to have these programs, but how to improve them.”
More than a decade ago, Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, became the largest city in the world to introduce free fare transportation. Aimed at the city’s tax residum, the plan faced heavy opposition before the rollout, with some framing it as a political stunt that could not be politically viable.
Almost a year ago, the researchers found That use of public transportation increased by 14% and that the mobility of low-income residents increased. Similar schemes have since grown on the continent, in Montpellier in France and Dunkirkfor example, and extended to countries in the case of Luxembourg and Malta.
When Mamdani promised to launch a city-owned city in each of the five boroughs of New York, reminding ASLTınaşbaş store of Iydıny Store in ISTANBUL in IStanbul in 2014.
At that time, he was surprised to see foreign shelves, full of products ranging from bread to lentils to basic household items, provided by small producers. Access to these stores is limited to low-income households, with families receiving a preloaded monthly loyalty card to use at these stores, he said. “These grocery stores in the city of Istanbul were successful and were repeated in other cities.”
Over a decade, the experience convinced him to continue the promise of Mamdani. “I am struck by the fact that the New York Elite and Republicans want to paint these proposals as some kind of coming from the moon,” he said. “Things like non-profit shops or free buses, they are not catastrophic ideas, nor are they socialist. They have been tried in different parts of the world.”
For New Yorkers, introductions to City-Run grocery stores can also be found closer to home. The Chicago mulling same plans, while Atlanta and St. Paul, Kansas Launched their own takeover of municipal grocery stores.
Mamdani’s campaign also promised to free childbirth for all children in the town, aged six weeks to five years. Days before the election, the state of New Mexico provided the city with a preliminary example, Became the First US State To offer free nursing care to all its residents, in a bid to grow its economy and increase the level of well-being of the body and the child.
Across the Atlantic, the Portuguese government has begun introducing free childcare by 2022, starting from Children aged one and under promises to gradually expand the program to children up to the age of three. While the program is open to all, places are limited and can be difficult to access, with priority given to low-income families and parents.
In Berlin, babysitting children free From their first birthday until they start school since 2018, although the centers are allowed to make additional cases for provisions and extracurricular activities. Across the Nordic countries, free childcare is not universal, but is severely subsidized by the State for most families.
Mamdani’s platform also includes a promise to provide new parents with a free baby basket that includes items such as diapers, wipes, swaddles and books. In Finland, the baby box a universal good since 1949 and ever since emulated in nearly 100 programs in 60 countries worldwide.
The sharp contrast seen in Mamdani’s policies inside the US and abroad may have something to do with the lack of welfare in the US, writer Mary Holland found this week. “For anyone living in a Western European state, the expression of democratic socialist socialist ideas may be perfectly reasonable,” he wrote. of the Monocle. “But to many Americans, they are wildly ambitious — radical, even.”
Perhaps the most widely panned of Mamdani’s ideas is his promise to freeze rents for nearly a million renters in the city’s slums. The former secretary of the US Treasury, Larry Summers, one of those who killed the idea, wrote on social media that the rent control of a town, after the bombing “.
In 2020, Berlin passed a law that resulted in a five-year rental lease, at the level of June 2019, for 90% of the city’s flats. While the Law offers relief to about 1.5 million households who have seen rents that are the third in six years before the landlords in 2021 after dealing with the landlords in 2021 after the attack on the landlords in 2021 that is not involved in the state that is not involved in the private market.
A 2022 paper, however, noted an interesting effect on the short scale, as it was found That while the rent control of the area, residents seem to be more receptive to new housing developments in their area. The finding suggests that if Mamdani is able to implement the rent freezes as promised, it will help provide advance His Promise To also triple the city’s affordable housing.
Perhaps the strongest precedent, however, for renting Freezes comes from New York’s own recent history. In the last 10 years, during Bill de Blasio’s Tenure of the Mayor, the members of the rent of the city of the city voted to rent the SCECET FOR BEL New York City “This is why the criticism of the rental of the Mamdani rent overflows for me – it is painted, although there is a precedent, supported by government reports and data.”