Mamdani understands neither economics nor New York City

Why do the world's poor make a beeline for New York City? It is now home to over 3 million immigrants, the largest influx coming from the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico, Guyana, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Haiti and India. How can these overwhelmingly poor new arrivals stay if no one can afford to live there? Answer: They crowd into small apartments and work their tails off. They're largely there because there's money to be made. Like it or not, rich people have the money and spend it in the city. That's why the creative class also gravitates to New York. The rich can afford to patronize the theater and the arts. Which brings us to mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and his family. His father was a professor in Uganda and his mother a filmmaker. Both of Indian descent, they moved to New York, where his father became director of Columbia University's Institute of African Studies. Columbia became a rich elite institution thanks to the wealthy New Yorkers who since the Gilded Age have bestowed the university with large gifts. Zohran Mamdani lied on his college application to Columbia about being "Black or African American." He thus took a spot intended for the Black descendants of slavery and Jim Crow. Perhaps the public City College of New York wasn't good enough for him. The Mamdanis were never your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. And Zohran was hardly the only privileged kid to accessorize with Socialist ideology. But modern Democratic Socialists in Europe would regard his views as naive. They are certainly foreign to the churn of the New York economy. Take Mamdani's idea of city-run grocery stores. They would compete with the bodegas now largely operated by Dominicans, Yemenis and other Middle Eastern immigrants. These little stores are the economic ladder on which generations of New Yorkers have climbed out of poverty and into the middle class. Their proprietors put in brutal hours, working harder than most any public employee would. Mamdani, meanwhile, has never run a lemonade stand. New York's Social Democrats revere Sweden for its wide social safety net. "I don't think we should have billionaires," Mamdani said, perhaps unaware that Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the United States does. The rich in Sweden make the social welfare system possible. You can't have one without the other. Mamdani has plans to raise taxes on city residents making more than $1 million. Wealthy New Yorkers already pay some of the highest combined income taxes in the country. The richest 1% of residents pay nearly 48% of all New York City personal income tax. That's up from 40% in 2019. This doesn't account for the property taxes on their co-ops, condos and brownstones. Nor the high sales tax on their luxury purchases and dining at the restaurants that employ immigrants, command of English not required. Mamdani's vow to raise taxes on "richer, whiter neighborhoods" is hardly a recruiting tool for willing taxpayers. None of the inhabitants needs a passport to lower their taxes by moving elsewhere. Housing is very expensive, but Mamdani's plan for extending rent control over a fraction of New York's rentals, his among them, would discourage the building of new units. This is a problem of supply and demand. There are ways to ease the housing burden, but New York will always be an expensive address. Without a doubt, the city is home to some stark contrasts between the rich and poor, but it also offers a conveyor belt between the two groups. Many who take the ride out of poverty leave the city for the suburbs. That's the way it's always been. Mamdani understands neither economics nor New York City. Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop.