Is the city that defines modern capitalism really about to elect a self-described democratic socialist as mayor? If the answer turns out to be yes, as seems likely, then the explanation may lie in New York City’s evolving economy, which now includes fewer hard-charging Wall Street capitalists and more people who work in care services, government, creative industries and the non-profit world.
This poses a dilemma for the leading candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani.1He is promising a slew of benefits — free bus rides, child care, subsidized grocery stores — and has seized on the affordability crisis in housing, promising no rent increases of stabilized rental units in the city for four years. To pay for all this, he is counting on high earners, but Wall Street is a shrinking share of the city’s employment base. JP Morgan has more employees in Texas than in New York.
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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