Zohran Mamdani's appointments to steer New York's economic development reflect the win-win of people-centered growth.??? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

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JULY 23, 2026

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****MEYERSON ON TAP****

**Real-world democratic socialism**

**Zohran Mamdani's appointments to steer New York's
economic development reflect the win-win of people-centered growth.**

Yesterday, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani provided a defining example of real-world democratic socialism by appointing [link removed] both Anthony Shorris and Lina Khan to jointly head the city's Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Shorris's resume includes not just his work at McKinsey, the world's foremost corporate consultant, but also being first deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio and having led the Port Authority (where he kicked out every lobbyist [link removed]); Khan chaired President Biden's Federal Trade Commission, where she led the administration's anti-monopoly initiatives. Khan will chair the EDC board; Shorris will be its president.

Historically, the city's Economic Development Corporation has promoted such major
projects as Hudson Yards, which includes, or will include when completed, a number of office skyscrapers and a cultural center between Penn Station and the Hudson River. The EDC's progressive critics have argued that most of the developments it has spurred in recent decades chiefly benefit the city's business interests;

**The New York Times**quoted a local DSA leader who called it "a concierge service for a small number of wealthy New Yorkers."

By that standard, the EDC is inherently at odds with Mamdani's mandate for, among other things, equitable development. But no American mayor has the power or resources to finance most major new developments with public funds only, much less to have them publicly owned and operated.

So Mamdani's appointments are clearly an effort to promote more equitable development: a concierge service, so to speak, for one and all. With both Shorris (whose appointment was welcomed by both the traditional New York establishment and much of the
city's left) and Khan (whose appointment was welcomed by the left) at the helm, I suspect the city will see not just more high-rises, but more high-rises with affordable-unit quotas. I suspect we'll see decent wages not just for the construction workers building the developments but for the retail clerks who staff their stores and the janitors who clean them. And if Meta wants a new office building or Amazon a new warehouse, they're likely to encounter some standards for consumer and worker rights at odds with their low-road business models.

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Even with wage standards and affordable set-asides and such, the EDC will still promote private-sector investment, for the rather basic reason that even cities with socialist mayors exist in a capitalist economy. The American city with the longest history of socialist governance, Milwaukee,
saw its governing socialists develop the nation's best roads, parks, and sewer systems, which enabled its privately owned factories and breweries to operate more efficiently.

In the 1980s, the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, the once and future Bernie Sanders, had the city develop a waterfront park around which small businesses clustered and thrived. He funded free arts programs that led to the flourishing of cultural institutions and the in-migration of arts workers, and established a community land trust that boosted affordable housing. And over the past 15 years, the Labour Party mayor of Manchester, the largest city in Northern England, had the city take over the privately owned bus lines, producing a transit system that revitalized the city and helped his successful efforts to invite corporations that had previously shunned the city to build their headquarters there and bring the city's center back to life. On Monday, that mayor, Andy Burnham, became the UK's prime
minister.

Mamdani is the well-versed heir to all his socialist or social democratic predecessors. Like them, he exists within a capitalist economy and society and brings to them the countervailing-but not exterminating-power of consumer, worker, community, and democratic values and interests. America's socialist mayors have been particularly successful in creating public sector infrastructure and practices that boost small businesses; Mamdani has eliminated rules hampering sidewalk halal vendors and restaurateurs who want to serve ice cream.

Socialists are elected by and govern in the real world. Historically, they governed American cities by enlarging a more egalitarian public sphere, which has given their residents more economic capacity and a more congenial environment to boost private investment as well. That's why Lina Khan and Anthony Shorris will both be heading Zohran Mamdani's EDC.

Harold Meyerson
Editor at
Large

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