Make the City Ours (Power, Care, and the Commons in New York)

What would it take to decommodify New York City under a Zohran Mamdani mayoralty? This book connects policy, organizing, and collective power to show how cities can be reclaimed from the market.

What would it take to build a decommodified city—not just in policy, but in everyday life? Written in a new political moment, this book argues that transformation depends on growing movement spaces rooted in reciprocity, collective action, and shared power.

Blending vision with strategy, the authors move beyond issue-by-issue analysis to outline an alternative model of urban governance—one in which municipal government helps build a non-market city while fostering the solidarities needed to sustain it. The focus is not just affordability, but power: who governs, how decisions are made, and how residents act as participants rather than consumers.

Across housing, transit, care, education, and public safety, the book shows how decommodification can be advanced through democratic, municipalist approaches that both stabilize communities and expand participation in governing shared systems.

Grounded in organizing and campaigns, it offers a hopeful, movement-centered vision while insisting that lasting change must outlast electoral cycles. The result is a practical, movement-rooted blueprint for reclaiming the city as a shared political project.