What Does Zohran Mamdani's Win Mean for Philly?

I think we can all reasonably agree that unless Zohran Mamdani somehow grotesquely fucks up his messaging to the more moderate NYC votership, we can anticipate him winning the mayoralty. NYC is solidly blue, Eric Adams is a meme, and Silwa is as unserious as one can expect from a MAGA style populist.

So operating under the assumption that Mamdani is the incoming Mayor, I’d like to take the time to speculate on his potential impacts on NYC’s rusted brother: Philly.

I read Philly DSA’s article on this speculative impact this morning. It’s fine but concerns itself more with electoral/procedural momentum and general clout the DSA has now earned. It’s a good hype piece, but I’m curious about the more (hypothetical) substantive material impact.

Let’s look at Mamdani’s platform:

• Rent Freezes

• Free Transit Fares

• Free Childcare

• Publicly Subsidized Grocers

• Increased taxes on the wealthy, increased corporate tax rates

• $30 minimum wage in 5 years

Pretty standard promises one can expect from a DSA candidate. I have no personal gripe with them, and at most suspect them to be a bit on the idealistic side (being polite here). Let’s assume he can get the ball rolling on even a fraction of that platform. I think we can say that he’s pretty hostile to the corporations/business, real estate, and high net worth individuals the city functionally relies on for tax revenue. 1% of the city’s taxpayers contribute upwards of half of income tax revenue. NYC needs its obscene inequality to operate. This is a systemic truth of what keeps the city solvent.

Rent control expansions, commercial vacancy taxes, and crackdowns on real estate speculation may spook developers. Higher taxes on financial firms and high net worth individuals may push them to relocate -- capital flight has been a consistent threat made against Mamdani’s campaign. John Catsimatidis of Gristedes and D’Agostino’s fame is a pretty good example of a billionare detractor threatening an exit, quoted as saying “We can’t compete with Mamdani opening city-run supermarkets for free…”

Is he a fat asshole for that? Sure lol but NYC probably wants (needs) his money and Jersey is but a bridge away if he wants to relocate HQ. You aren’t going to see Merrill-Lynch make a full, clean exit, but it might behoove them to decentralize their talent - opening offices in magnet cities, and reducing local headcount.

NYC is going to feel the burn under DSA style redistributive policies if these high earners leave, commercial real estate is gutted, and Mamdani pushes for radical public service expansion with a shrinking tax base.

Okay, now to what I care about: How can this be good for Philly? 😋

Philly already poaches the spillover from New York (pretty ineffectively though, thanks Cherelle). It’s not a direct-pipeline, but one can hope that Philly will likely be the #1 net gainer for any hypothetical NYC exit-migration.

For the junior finance and tech yuppies, Rittenhouse, Hawthorn, Newbold, Point Breeze, Pennsport, Society Hill, Old City, Fishtown, and Northern Liberties are just diet upper Brooklyn in aesthetic but at an appealing price point. Accounting for the fact that these young professionals are sharing bedrooms in Flatbush and commuting an hour by MTA into FiDi, why wouldn’t a one bedroom in Fishtown and a biweekly, hybrid-style Amtrak commute from 30th Street not be a worthwhile alternative? There are already this breed of super commuter concentrated in the reviled Post-Brothers abomination in “NoLibs”.

I think that if Mamdani’s politics present as too business hostile and ideologically rigid, the trickle of the Yuppies will turn into a flood.

NYC is also home to so many start-ups, and if those commercial rents and tax burdens spike hard enough, Philly will be an attractive satellite HQ for them. I mean look at Castimatidis’ money hungry chimp out: non-bit players are already looking to relocate and the general election hasn’t even happened yet.

If you want East Coast proximity, Philly is a fantastic alternative without D.C. or Boston prices.

Wahh wahh wahh we hate gentrification. It displaces the native poor, and all the other negatives we know and hate. But let’s look at things from this angle - Nouveau NYC Rich coming to Philly and buying up property. Annoying as fuck? Yes - but existing homeowners will see a boom in their property values, city revenue will increase via transfer taxes and a bigger property tax base, and we can expect these “up and coming” neighborhoods to finally up and come.

I also hypothesize a needed reversal of Philly’s chronic brain drain problem. Philly always loses talent to NYC, and should NYC’s status weaken, perhaps there will be more incentive for talent to stay local. Philly’s prestige economy will get a much needed boost.

Again this is all speculative in terms of net benefit. Frankly Philly is so poorly run I wouldn’t be too shocked if we took this opportunity and fumbled it for the worse. We likely totally lack the capacity to absorb any beneficial growth. Philly’s tax structure is already significantly hostile to high income earners and businesses, but with literally no redistributive gain for the lower and middle class. It’s just bad out of incompetence and corruption tbh. We magically scare businesses from the city and tax the motherfuck out of the wealthy, but have a $7.50 minimum wage and underfunded schools? 🤨 What ideology is this.

I’m not praying on NYC’s downfall at all - all of these projections are not assuming that Mamdani will carry out his policies poorly. It’s assuming that IF he adheres to his claimed platform closely enough, the resultant impacts could be a net benefit for Philadelphians broadly. Realistically speaking though, I am sure Mamdani will be forced to moderate once in office.