With the 2025 basic election simply over 50 days away, New York Metropolis mayoral hopefuls have just below two months to make their instances to voters in a hotly contested race.
Although the election has acquired outsized nationwide consideration following Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani’s (D-Queens) unlikely Democratic main victory, it has been formed by top-of-mind native points like affordability, housing, and public security.
A June survey of New Yorkers performed by the Residents Funds Fee discovered that total high quality of life scores remained low within the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic — solely 34% of these surveyed rated their high quality of life as “good” or “excellent.”
The issues affecting on a regular basis high quality of life in New York Metropolis will probably decide the subsequent mayor. Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Eric Adams, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa have every taken totally different arguments as New Yorkers grapple greater than ever with rising costs and a housing scarcity.
Right here is how every main candidate has mentioned they may enhance the standard of life in New York Metropolis.
Zohran Mamdani
Democratic mayoral nominee and Meeting Member Zohran MamdaniPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, is comfortably main the pack in response to most polls, and is predicted to win in November except a number of of his opponents drop out of the race.
The Queens assemblyman cruised to victory within the June democratic main by specializing in affordability — Mamdani needs to freeze hire for all rent-stabilized tenants, construct city-owned grocery shops with regulated costs, and make all metropolis buses free. Along with freezing hire, Mamdani has mentioned he plans to construct 200,000 new items of inexpensive housing in a decade.
“This vision puts the public sector first and commits city government to delivering measurable outcomes as opposed to simply relying on the behavior of private developers,” Mamdani mentioned of his housing plan in a February interview with New York News.
In his marketing campaign, he has emphasised town’s rising wealth hole, which he hopes to slim by climbing up taxes on New York’s richest. This promise has led some New York millionaires to say they’d take into account shifting if Mamdani will get elected.
“Food prices are out of control,” Mamdani’s marketing campaign web site reads. “Only the very wealthiest aren’t feeling squeezed at the register.”
Mamdani is planning main transportation reforms, primarily together with his promise to make buses “fast” and “fare-free.” By eliminating required bus fares — which simply over half of riders pay, in response to MTA statistics — and constructing precedence lanes and loading zones, Mamdani hopes to make buses “reliable, safe, and universally accessible.”
As an Meeting member, he efficiently pushed for a pilot program within the 2024 state finances that made 5 bus strains, one in every borough, free for all customers over the course of a 12 months. Whereas ridership elevated on these strains, the MTA selected to not renew it as a result of, it claimed, not sufficient new riders have been added to every route.
Constructing on his affordability agenda, Mamdani plans to implement free childcare in New York Metropolis for each baby aged 6 weeks to five years, a transfer supposed to alleviate stress from the skyrocketing prices for younger households within the metropolis.
Andrew Cuomo
Former Gov. and unbiased mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo.Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
As soon as favored to win the June Democratic main in a landslide, Cuomo is now working on an unbiased ticket after taking an surprising loss to Mamdani’s grassroots, youth-powered marketing campaign.
Cuomo rolled out an expanded affordability plan in August, calling the price of residing in New York Metropolis a “major issue” and characterizing Mamdani’s financial plans as irresponsible and unrealistic.
Relatively than make buses free, Cuomo plans to implement a 100% bus and subway subsidy for qualifying New Yorkers.
Cuomo has targeted a lot of his marketing campaign, each within the main and the overall, on attacking Mamdani’s relative inexperience in political workplace. He has argued that he’s the one candidate with the managerial expertise to deal with the day-to-day high quality of life points afflicting New Yorkers.
At his presentation in August, Cuomo additionally pitched an alternative choice to Mamdani’s plan for city-owned and operated grocery shops, advocating as an alternative for improved meals advantages and subsidies for qualifying New Yorkers. The previous governor argued that Mamdani’s plan to open metropolis grocery shops would solely hurt small companies, calling Mamdani’s financial agenda “anti-business socialism.”
Cuomo needs to construct 500,000 new items of inexpensive housing items inside a decade and work on figuring out and redeveloping “underutilized” public tons for inexpensive housing.
Within the realm of public security, Cuomo plans to additional crack down on “nuisance and quality of life crimes” like retail theft and vandalism. The previous governor additionally plans to deal with homelessness and psychological well being by increasing entry to psychological well being care, rising outreach to unhoused New Yorkers, and additional implementing involuntary dedication legal guidelines, which allow involuntary dedication of people with extreme psychological sickness who’re decided to be a hazard to themselves and the general public.
Eric Adams
Mayor Eric Adams.Photograph by Dean Moses
Beneath Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, New York Metropolis has applied High quality of Life Groups in NYPD precincts to deal with “quality of life issues” like unlawful mopeds, deserted and derelict autos, homeless encampments, outside drug use, and noise complaints.
The policing technique, expanded to each Manhattan precinct in July and ultimately to each borough in August, is supposed to use the NYPD’s devoted focus to on a regular basis points, not simply emergencies. The High quality of Life Groups, or Q-Groups, have been criticized by some as resulting in incarceration for minor offenses and placing immigrants at higher threat of deportation.
Adams, who’s constantly polling behind Mamdani and Cuomo, mentioned in August that the implementation of Q-Groups is “ending the culture of anything goes” in New York Metropolis.
On housing, the mayor has referred to as his administration the “most pro-housing administration in city history,” having “created, preserved, or planned” near 500,000 new properties for the reason that begin of his time period in 2021. Adams seems to be to transform unused industrial properties into inexpensive housing and reform property taxes.
In December, Adams signed the “City of Yes” housing invoice into legislation. This invoice restructured zoning rules in New York Metropolis to present town extra energy to rezone land for inexpensive housing.
“With this law, we are not only increasing the housing supply but also upholding our commitment to build a city that is fair and equitable for everyone,” Adams mentioned on the invoice signing.
Like Mamdani, Adams hopes to implement devoted lanes for metropolis buses to make them quicker. Nonetheless, town has fallen behind on the required enlargement of the bus lane community attributable to a reported lack of assets.
Curtis Sliwa
New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa participates within the West Indian Day parade within the Brooklyn borough of New York Metropolis, U.S., September 1, 2025. REUTERS/Christian Monterrosa
The underdog Republican candidate pushing forward of the sitting mayor within the polls, Sliwa, has criticized his opponents’ strategy to housing and security.
Sliwa needs to repeal Adams’ “City of Yes” laws, which he criticizes for taking zoning decision-making away from native communities, restore vacant, rent-controlled residences, and convert industrial areas into inexpensive housing.
The Republican candidate has mentioned that New York Metropolis is “facing a crisis of crime, lawlessness, and failed leadership” beneath Adams, and has proposed hiring 7,000 extra NYPD officers to town’s police pressure to additional crack down on every kind of crime.
Sliwa mentioned in an August interview with The Metropolis that although “most people live in a city where they’re never subject to shootings or murders … they are subject to the violation of their quality of life by people who never get arrested for everything they do.”
Like Adams, Sliwa needs to amplify deal with non-violent crimes like shoplifting and drag racing by implementing extra specialised NYPD groups in focused areas throughout town.
Sliwa is seeking to crack down on “loitering, harassment, and unsafe behavior” in New York Metropolis’s subways and buses, in addition to improve the NYPD Transit Bureau’s presence for extra lively patrol of subway automobiles and platforms.
