Zohran Mamdani is about to face a test I suspect he is unprepared for.

Zohran Mamdani is about to face a test I suspect he is unprepared for.
The annual operating budget for the City of New York is about $117 billion. Those dollars provide income and flourishing profits for many people and businesses. Roughly 30% of the budget is devoted to payroll, and those employees have a strong vested interest in fair compensation and good working conditions. The remainder goes toward the goods and services the people of New York rely on, and they, in turn, have a vested interest in receiving them in adequate quantity and quality. Any big city mayor can tell Mr. Mamdani that pressure and complaints from both employees and citizens are constant and unending.

Almost all of that $117 billion eventually flows into the private sector. Contractors, suppliers of equipment and materials, and tens of thousands of businesses depend on city spending—as do businesses that rely on the wages of city employees paying for housing, food, clothing, education, recreation, and all the other necessities of living. Every one of these private sector beneficiaries has an interest in things continuing to go well, and if possible, even better.

Another powerful force is the network of property owners and developers. They have hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in land use decisions, building codes, and permitting processes. They have become expert at playing the system in whatever way provides them the greatest advantage.

Every new mayoral administration presents a familiar challenge to these forces. Their goal is to co-opt the administration so that their ability to profit from the city’s largesse is maintained—preferably increased. It always begins the same way: cultivating friendships, sharing insider knowledge, and becoming part of influential inner circles. It too often ends with elaborate schemes of bribery that do not look like bribery. And if the mayor’s office cannot be influenced directly, mid-level managers responsible for enforcement, inspections, and permitting are frequently more accessible.

All of these forces will now be unleashed on Mamdani with the confident expectation that they will succeed, as they have so many times before. His task is to ensure that the system works for the people, while keeping the powerful and self-aggrandizing players of the city’s entrenched networks of influence in check.

Complicating matters is New York’s unusual structure. Five borough presidents and their councils often act as if they are the singular authority in their domains. The City Council is powerful, and its members are fierce in defending the interests of those who put them in office. The mayor must find ways to work with them even when their priorities conflict with his own.

Perhaps that is why so few mayors of New York are remembered for their successes. If Mamdani can prove himself equal to the challenge, he will be among them. I hope he is.