#Zohran_Mamdani’s election as New York City’s new mayor marks the boldest socialist experiment the city has seen in a century. His platform—built around rent freezes, tax hikes on high earners, union-mandated public construction, and redistributive property-tax reform—is presented as economic justice. In reality, these are the very levers that once nearly destroyed New York. I know, because I lived through that era and invested in its ruins.
I was young when I first came to New York—curious, hungry, and willing to take risks. On 125th Street near the railway line, I bought a set of brown-front walk-ups—twenty thousand square feet of forgotten Harlem—for just $125,000. Nobody wanted them. They were all rent-controlled, all neglected. But my brother and I saw potential where others saw despair. We turned those buildings around, one apartment at a time.
We did the same on Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, from 125th to 178th Street, when the neighborhood was still riddled with crime and decay. Those were hard years. We used wraparound mortgages because banks wouldn’t lend north of 110th Street. The landlords before us were in their seventies and eighties, exhausted by rent regulation and unable to maintain their properties. Everything was stacked against us—rising costs, frozen rents, endless repairs, and a bureaucracy that treated owners as adversaries.
That was the Dickens era of Harlem—magnificent buildings suffocating under bad economics.
Then came what I call the Yanni era—the Giuliani years—the great turning point. Crime dropped by over 70 percent. The city rediscovered law, order, and civic responsibility. Suddenly people walked safely, families returned, and banks began lending again. What had once been a no-go zone became a community of renewal. If that era hadn’t come, we would have been foreclosed on.
We didn’t make money from operations; we made it from endurance and belief. The reward came when incentives and governance finally aligned. Those same apartments we bought for $50,000–$80,000 each are now worth $800,000–$1 million. The brownstones on 125th Street once sold for $125,000; now they fetch $3–5 million. Even Bill Clinton’s office opened on 125th Street—symbolic of the city’s rebirth.
That transformation wasn’t luck; it was incentive. When you give people freedom to invest, they improve their surroundings. When you suffocate them with controls, everything decays. Handouts never build; incentives do.
I’ve seen this lesson repeat across the world. Delhi tried free electricity and water—it collapsed into deficit and scarcity. Mexico City’s subsidies built sprawling informal settlements. Rio de Janeiro’s favelas and Bombay’s slums are what happen when states replace initiative with paternalism. Compassion without accountability becomes chaos.
And now New York is again flirting with that same danger. Mamdani’s proposals—rent freezes, punitive taxation, public-sector construction mandates, and property-tax “equity” schemes—sound noble but repeat the same old mistakes. Rent freezes lead to deterioration. Tax hikes drive capital away. Redistribution breeds dependency.
New York still enjoys the residual momentum of twenty-five years of incentive-driven growth, but by 2030, if coercive policies prevail, that momentum will fade. You cannot freeze income while inflating cost and expect balance. Economics, like physics, does not negotiate.
Let’s be clear about who already carries the burden.
The top 1 percent of Americans pay about 40 percent of all federal income taxes.
The top 5 percent pay roughly 60 percent, the top 10 percent about 70 percent, and the top 20 percent contribute nearly 80 percent or more.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers account for less than 3 percent of federal income-tax revenue.
So how much more can we demand from the same group? They already fund nearly the entire system. Fairness isn’t redistribution—it’s proportional responsibility.
Property taxation tells the same story. Larger homes in wealthier boroughs already pay higher absolute taxes—but those areas also manage better services: cleaner streets, safer neighborhoods, stronger schools. That’s not privilege—it’s competent governance.
Take Scarsdale, where disciplined management converts tax revenue into results—excellent schools, civic order, well-kept parks. Contrast that with Yonkers, where rates can be just as high but services falter because spending is misdirected. The issue isn’t wealth; it’s management.
Every borough functions differently—that’s the virtue of local autonomy. But when the state imposes coercive legislation in the name of equality—forcing identical outcomes instead of enabling opportunity—it punishes competence and rewards inefficiency.
Coercive legislation never builds prosperity. It can equalize misery, but it cannot create mobility. Societies rise when incentive is protected and achievement is rewarded—not when ambition is taxed, initiative is stifled, and performance is leveled downward by decree.
People become poorer when they are divested from economic return. The city I knew learned that lesson once. Let’s hope it doesn’t have to learn it again.
If anyone is genuinely interested in my story or wishes to verify the record, I am happy to provide it. The names of the companies, the deeds, and the timelines of acquisition and restoration all exist. They tell the same story I have shared here—of risk, resilience, and reward born from belief in incentive and good governance.
Author Note: Iqbal Latif is an entrepreneur and property investor who restored multiple Harlem and Washington Heights buildings during New York’s rent-control era of the 1980s and 1990s. His firsthand experience with incentive-based renewal informs his views on urban policy and economic reform. Records of these ventures and the companies involved are available upon request.