The City We Can Call Ours

The deafening racket we’re getting here in Spain from US politics or, more like it, from Donald Trump’s chaotic and volatile presidency, tends to drown out other signals we’re getting. In this situation of the Trump administration’s blind developmentalism and explicit refusal to accept any limits or to engage in mature consideration of the policies it’s pushing, Zohran Mamdani’s victory as Democratic nominee for New York City mayor is a breath of fresh air. And for more than one reason. A Muslim, born in Kampala, Uganda, of Indian parents, his personal background and practised values thoroughly contradict everything that Trumpism and the far right are preaching and imposing around the world. It’s also a relief that someone who seeks to be mayor of a city that unquestionably symbolises urban modernity should campaign with the slogan “the affordable city”.

With Spain’s local elections less than two years away, many cities are showing clear signs that their traditional development models are foundering. The impact of the 2008 financial and real-estate crisis, combined with the far-reaching effects of digital platforms offering tourist accommodation and the historical failure in terms of a good public housing policy are driving many people out of cities. Yet the city is still a key place for opportunities, exchanges, and transactions leading to all kinds of groupings with evident environmental and mobility effects that are visible in large Spanish cities, all of which don’t have enough childcare services for the under-threes, and neither do they have plans in place for dealing with lengthening lifespan and its implications for the care system. Cities and their future models are still under the thrall of the expansionist approach of the beginning of the century, so the talk is only about growth, development, and doing more and more.

Mamdani’s message is different. If we understand the city as a community of people of all ages and origins, with a wide variety of lifestyles and forms of cohabitation, but also coexisting and sharing streets and squares, then what can we all afford? What is it that brings us closer to ways of being together and forms of recognition and respect? What might allow us to look to the future without turning our homes into fortresses, without being always on guard, and distrustful of everyone around us?

In electoral campaigns, the main parties are still clinging to a notion of local development closely linked with expansion of capital, real estate, and finance. It’s the message sent out by the technocrats and it’s still alive and well among the power elites. But there is room for another kind of development, the one that holds that true development, rather than focusing on economic indicators, enhances people’s freedoms and includes education, health, participation and, in brief, fosters each person’s dignity. In these times of crude neoliberalism in which social justice is shunned as a device that is said to take from the rich part of what they have achieved “by their own merits” to reward others who have failed “because of their demerits” and haven’t achieved their goals, these two ways of understanding development (accumulation of capital versus expanded rights and freedoms) will define in each election what democracy and rule of law mean for each voter.

The night Zohran Mamdani defeated former Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and was declared the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York he said, “We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford. A city where … hard work is repaid with a stable life. Where eight hours on the factory floor or behind the wheel of a cab is enough to pay the mortgage. It is enough to keep the lights on. It is enough to send your kid to school. Where rent-stabilized apartments are actually stabilized. Where buses are fast and free. Where childcare doesn’t cost more than CUNY. And where public safety keeps us truly safe.” And he added, “And it’s where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump’s fascism. To stop ICE agents from deporting our neighbors. And to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party. A party where we fight for working people with no apology.”

It’s high time that cities and citizens started thinking about what we can afford. There is much at stake. It is only from proximity that we can work in a more integral, direct, and shared way to tackle the problems of individuals, families, and communities. It begins from the premise that a fulfilled life shouldn’t be a privilege reserved for a fortunate few but that it must be something that the city administration should strive to guarantee for everyone. The dignity of people is everybody’s business.

This column was originally published in Spanish at El Diario and was translated into English by Julie Wark. 

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