New York’s Mayoral Dilemma

With Labor Day behind them, the candidates in New York City’s mayoral election are kicking their efforts into high gear. Polls show Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s lead holding steady, but one important question remains: Will the frontrunner face one challenger, two, or three?

The remaining major candidates—former governor Andrew Cuomo, incumbent mayor Eric Adams, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa—face a dilemma, argues John Ketcham.

“If all three stay in, Mamdani is almost certain to win, though each retains a small chance. If some step aside—albeit at the expense of their political careers—Mamdani faces tougher odds,” he writes.

Read here to see why leaving the race could be a bold move for each—but also a tough sell.

New York’s Good Cause Eviction law has the potential to decimate housing in both city and state, argues Jen Sidorova. Enacted in April 2024, the law paired strict limits on when landlords can end a tenancy with caps on annual rent increases.

Those limits make an already heavily regulated rental market even harder to navigate for property owners. The result? More landlords are selling to out-of-town buyers or abandoning their properties entirely.

“If left unchanged,” Sidorova writes, “Good Cause is likely to shrink rental supply, shift ownership toward large institutional investors, and worsen housing quality.”

Read more here.

The judiciary has repeatedly stalled Donald Trump’s agenda. His administration has been subjected to more nationwide injunctions in four months than all presidencies combined stretching back at least six decades. The president has blamed several alleged culprits for these struggles, including the venerable Federalist Society.

But according to Ilya Shapiro, Trump is wrong to blame the legal organization, which helped engineer the president’s makeover of the federal courts. “Indeed, the great irony is that, despite the president’s protestations against the federal bench, the most enduring impact remaining from his first term is his transformation of the judiciary—with the help of the Federalist Society.” 

Read Shapiro’s story from City Journal’s Summer issue here.

Citing “equity,” the New York State Board of Regents is scrapping its exam-based graduation requirements beginning in the 2027–2028 school year. Students will be able to graduate by submitting service projects, participating in the arts, or creating portfolios of other artistic or scientific endeavors of their choosing.

This is a mistake, argues Roberta Schaefer. “Without the requirement to show a solid academic foundation, more students will leave New York’s high schools unprepared for citizenship and productive adult lives.”

Schaefer recommends that New York schools return to basics: a standard, content-rich curriculum, orderly classrooms, and holding schools accountable for student progress.

Philadelphia teetered on the brink of collapse for decades. Residents fled in droves, leaving whole blocks abandoned and fueling crime. Starting in 2000, the city staged a massive comeback, driven by a ten-year property tax abatement that spurred development. But in 2022, Philadelphia halved the abatement, undermining hard-won housing gains.

Tobias Peter argues that Philadelphia’s ten-year abatement policy “stabilized neighborhoods, raised values of older homes, and spread amenities like supermarkets and coffee shops to underserved areas.” Halving it, he argues, “threatens Philadelphia’s traditionally high homeownership rate.” He calls on the city to restore or even expand the pre-2022 policy, and for other cities to embrace similar free-market reforms. Read more here.

Tennis players are used to facing adversity, whether it’s returning a blistering serve or battling an opponent in a long rally. But at the U.S. Open in New York, players must deal with an unexpected challenge: the stench of pot.

Emmet Hare writes about the growing number of tennis stars who have complained about the all-consuming smell of marijuana in New York, where the drug has been legal since 2021. These complaints, he observes, suggest that pot smokers have failed to grasp “their obligation to those with whom they share public air.”

Photo credits: Spencer Platt/Getty Images News (left); Roy Rochlin/Getty Images Entertainment (center); Alex Kent/Getty Images News (right)