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NYC’S SPEEDY SNOW REMOVAL UNDER MAMDANI EVOKES MEMORIES OF ‘SEWER
SOCIALISM’  
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Stephen Prager
January 26, 2026
Common Dreams
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_ The mayor’s response to the snowstorm has been described as an
early test for his version of “common good” governance. _

A snowplow removes snow from a street in the Brooklyn borough of New
York City on January 26, 2026., Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

 

God Bless sewer socialism
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historian David Austin Walsh had to say
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York City’s swift response to the largest snowstorm it’s seen in
five years, which dumped over a foot of snow on the five boroughs this
weekend.

Winter Storm Fern, which has ravaged the Northeastern United States
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test for the city’s left-wing mayor, Zohran Mamdani
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insurgent campaign last year not simply on providing new free
municipal services, but on making the ones New Yorkers already relied
upon, like sanitation, more robust and accessible.

It was an agenda that led him to be compared to a breed of socialist
mayor who focused less on lofty ideas and revolutionary rhetoric and
more on using the power of government to remedy the everyday concerns
of the public.

In October, just weeks before Mamdani’s triumph in the general
election, columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. wrote
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in the _New York Times_
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For history buffs, Mr. Mamdani has done the service of rekindling an
interest in a largely forgotten American tradition, the “sewer
socialists” who ran a significant list of cities in the last
century. The most durable among them was Daniel Hoan, the socialist
mayor of Milwaukee from 1916 to 1940. You don’t get reelected that
often by being a failure.Many socialist mayors did not mind being
associated with repairing the grubbiest of urban amenities because
doing so underscored their aim of running corruption-free governments
that did whatever they could to improve the lives of working-class
people in their jurisdictions. When lousy (or nonexistent) sewer
systems led to illness and death in low-income and immigrant
neighborhoods, said Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown
University, building and fixing sewers became a powerful example of
what “common good” governance could accomplish.Mr. Mamdani knows
sewer socialism’s history and has no qualms about identifying with
it.

This weekend was the first opportunity for New York’s youngest mayor
in over a century to put this philosophy into action in a test of
competence that past mayors have infamously failed
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Bill de Blasio [[link removed]], who
was lambasted over the underplowing of certain neighborhoods, to
Michael Bloomberg
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for ditching the blizzard conditions for Bermuda, to John Lindsay,
whose disastrous lack of preparation for a 1969 storm resulted in the
deaths of at least 42 people.

As Walsh wrote
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with the storm prepared to bear down, “Mamdani has a unique
opportunity to prove that sewer socialism works, but the crucial first
test is going to be not fucking up the snowstorm this weekend.”

By then, Mamdani’s preparations had long since begun
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with the city fitting thousands of sanitation department trucks with
snowplows, brining every highway and street in the city to make
cleanup easier, and ensuring that enough shelter beds were available
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to protect those without homes from the elements.

The mayor also undertook a robust yet simple effort to communicate
with New Yorkers about practical guidelines to stay safe through a
series of upbeat PSAs and appearances on local news.

“Make no mistake, New Yorkers, the full power of this city’s
enormous resources is prepared, poised, and ready to be deployed,”
Mamdani said
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during a press conference on Saturday. “Every agency is working in
lockstep with the other.”

Though death tolls were considerably lower than in other
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storms
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of its magnitude, the storm did not pass without tragedy. At least one
homeless man reportedly froze to death
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another six people have been found dead outside, though it’s unclear
if these deaths were weather-related.

But in all, the _Times_ said “the city largely appeared to be
prepared for the weather.”

Crews headed out to begin clearing roads at 8:30 am, when
precipitation had reached the requisite two inches; shortly after 7
pm, [Department of Sanitation spokesperson Joshua Goodman] said every
single street under city control had been plowed at least twice; tens
of millions of pounds of salt had been spread across the five
boroughs; and 2,500 sanitation workers
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shifts to continue the cleanup.

Mamdani, meanwhile, was praised for his active role in the cleanup
effort and for maintaining high visibility, where past mayors were
accused of shirking into the background.

One widely shared video shows the mayor personally shoveling snow to
free a stranded driver in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn,
home to a large Hasidic Jewish community.

Rabbi Moishe Indig, the executive vice president of the Jewish
Community Council of Williamsburg, called it “hands-on
leadership.”

Even one of Mamdani’s fiercest critics, Benny Polatseck, an aide to
former Mayor Eric Adams, was complimentary to his response.

“Credit where due,” he wrote
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“Looks like [Mamdani] is handling this storm very well so far.”

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Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

* New York City Snow Removal; Mayor Mamdani; Sewer Socialism
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