Good morning:
Last week, City Journal’s own Adam Lehodey scooped that Ana María Archila, Zohran Mamdani’s commissioner for the Office for International Affairs, intended to meet with Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations despite the ongoing hostilities between the Iranian and American governments.
Lehodey’s reporting brought the scheduled meeting to the attention of the U.S. State Department, which forced its cancellation. After City Journal published the news, Mamdani downplayed the scoop at an unrelated event, saying in response to press queries that he was unaware of the meeting and “the commissioner recognizes that this was made in error and we’re working on a new process in terms of new meeting requests.”
That the meeting was ever scheduled opens the door to questions about how top officials in the Mamdani administration view their role in government, and at what level of government they are operating. Are they leaders of the global left, or leaders of New Yorkers? As Lehodey notes, in June Mamdani attempted to meet with leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The meeting was called off after the State Department declined to issue a visa. A State Department official told reporters that such a visit would violate the visa restrictions imposed on Petro. The Colombian’s visa was revoked in September in response to his urging U.S. soldiers to disobey President Trump.
Within the city, some of Mamdani’s policy moves and rhetoric are driving out the wealthiest residents. A new report recently found that New York went from having 12.7% of all millionaires in the U.S. in 2010 to just 8.7% in 2022. As director of Research Judge Glock notes in the New York Post, the political left, and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in particular, have centered their campaigns around vilifying the wealthiest Americans. But New York City’s tax rates on the wealthy are already the highest in the nation. People know when they aren’t wanted. And they don’t like having their private homes videotaped and shared on social media by the mayor. So, these citizens are picking up and leaving, and they are taking their taxable income that funds socialist programs with them.
It isn’t just at the city level that policymakers are sabotaging their residents. This week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a first-in-the-nation one-year freeze on construction permits for large data centers. In response, MI’s Jesse Arm and Sean Speer warn that data centers and artificial intelligence are the future of American industry, but Americans’ discomfort with the technology risks putting us behind.
Finally, fellow Heather Mac Donald writes an important essay in City Journal about the nationwide trend of “teen takeovers” and the violence they devolve into. She breaks down the myths deployed to defend and absolve them—loneliness, Covid, emotional neediness, poverty, hunger, and too much law enforcement. None of these explanations withstands Mac Donald’s scrutiny. Continue reading for all these insights and more. Kelsey Bloom Editorial Director |
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An Education Agenda for New York City NYC Schools Need Significant Change, Not More Money
By Jennifer Weber, Danyela Souza Egorov, Ray Domanico | Manhattan Institute | Photo by John Moore/Getty Images
NYC’s Department of Education has a spending problem, not a funding problem. Despite a 21% inflation-adjusted increase in per-pupil spending over the past decade, which now exceeds $36,000 per student, and a $38.6 billion FY 2027 budget, enrollment is falling and academic outcomes are weak.
In new issue brief, education scholars Jennifer Weber, Danyela Souza Egorov, and Ray Domanico call on Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels to pursue structural reforms rather than more funding. These recommendations include: consolidate under-enrolled schools (134 now have fewer than 150 students); reduce the number of community school districts; cut central administration by 10%; reform special-education due-process spending; reinstate school-quality accountability ratings; and expand advanced-learner programs and school choice options like charters and scholarship tax credits.
The bottom line is that NYC already has the resources needed to run a successful education system. The real challenge is whether city leadership will restructure a system still built for a much larger, differently distributed student population. |
NYC’s Socialist Movement Forcing Millionaires to Flee the State — Leaving Mamdani, DSA in a Bind
By Judge Glock | New York Post | Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images
“Americans are some of the most mobile people on Earth: They move homes about three times more often than Europeans. As a recent report shows, that mobility is a problem for New York’s rising socialist movement. A new Citizens Budget Committee report found that New York’s share of millionaires, those earning more than a million dollars a year, declined more than any other state since 2010. ... “The flight of the millionaires leaves the rising Democratic Socialists of America movement, and Mayor Mamdani in particular, in a bind. On one hand, DSA campaigns have centered around attacking the millionaires and billionaires whom they claim are squeezing working citizens. On the other, the DSA needs those same people to pay exorbitant taxes to fund their social programs. ... “There’s a political logic to why some might celebrate the flight of the well-off. By driving more of their political enemies away, socialists can ensure their political dominance. ... Yet cities cannot survive forever if they keep shrinking the tax base that funds them.” |
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A Top Mamdani Official Tried to Meet with Iran
By Adam Lehodey | City Journal | Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for CPD Action “The top official in the Zohran Mamdani administration’s Office for International Affairs made plans to meet with Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations.
“Commissioner Ana María Archila was scheduled to meet with Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations ... alongside two other senior officials in the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs on July 7 at 11 a.m. ...
“The meeting between Archila and Iravani was called off after the State Department—which was not informed ahead of time—met with the Mamdani administration to clarify acceptable conduct, according to the State Department official. ...
“That Archila’s meeting was even contemplated raises questions about her judgment and the administration’s priorities. The office’s loosely defined mission is to promote a more ‘equitable and inclusive society’ and strengthen New York City’s position as a global leader. It’s more than a stretch to suggest that a meeting with representatives of a country with whom the United States is engaged in hostilities, and with whom it has no diplomatic relations, would help achieve those ends.” Related: |
The Scourge of Teen Takeovers
By Heather Mac Donald | City Journal | Photo by TYLER PASCIAK LARIVIERE/CHICAGO SUN-TIMES/AP PHOTO
“Teen takeovers are not about poverty or hunger. Nearly every participant carries a smartphone, making claims of material deprivation hard to sustain. Nearly all are amply supplied with the necessities of life, including food. Mass looting does not target the dairy or meat aisles of grocery stores. It does not seek blankets or warm socks. Convenience stores are plundered not because the looters are starving but because the stores stay open late and are poorly guarded. ... “Teen takeovers are not a mystery. They are the predictable result of a culture that increasingly refuses to hold lawbreakers responsible for antisocial behavior, especially if those lawbreakers are black.
“Every institution that once imposed discipline—the family, the schools, the juvenile-justice system, the police, even public opinion—has been weakened. Despite elite hopes, government programs cannot substitute for the habits of self-control and respect for law that make civil society possible, however. Until those habits are restored, Americans should expect more takeovers and a widening divide between jurisdictions willing to enforce basic norms and those that are not.” |
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How to Build a Pro-AI Majority
By Jesse Arm & Sean Speer | City Journal | Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images
“Artificial intelligence is becoming a political problem before it has finished becoming an economic one. For a technology whose champions call it the most consequential of the century, AI is strikingly unpopular. Roughly seven in ten Americans now oppose an AI data center in their area, with nearly half strongly opposed. ... The country building the future is, by this measure, the most anxious about it. ... “A hostile public produces hostile politics: moratoria, punitive taxes, licensing schemes, permitting refusals, and local vetoes that can throttle the deployment of AI across the economy. It already has done so. New York’s legislature passed a first-in-the-nation one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers in June. ...
“We think this is a mistake. AI is one of the most valuable technologies ever to emerge. There’s a real risk that America will squander its advantage in this field by failing to spread what it builds. The economic gains from AI depend on whether that diffusion occurs. Public opinion will help determine whether it does.” |
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Freya India Book Event: GIRLS®: Gen Z and the Commodification of Everything
By Manhattan Institute
Freya India sits down with Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Rob Henderson to celebrate her debut book, GIRLS®: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything. The two have a candid conversation about the forces reshaping childhood and identity today—from the monetization of insecurity and the commodification of mental health to the pressures of performative identity online. Freya India is the author of the Substack GIRLS, where she writes about the challenges girls and young women face in the modern world, reaching over 50,000 subscribers. She is a staff writer for Jonathan Haidt's newsletter, After Babel, and has contributed to numerous outlets including The New Statesman, The Spectator, and The Free Press. |
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