Mamdani is riding a populist wave, like Trump
L et me tell you a (true) Fairytale of New York. Like most New Yorkers with a car, I park my vehicle on the street to save myself the typical $1,000 a month that a spot in a parking garage now costs. Ostensibly to allow for 'street cleaning', but really to raise additional revenue through needless fines, the city has parking restrictions during mornings twice a week for an hour and a half on alternate sides of most streets, so that a vehicle may not be parked and left for more than a couple of days at a time.
This has given rise to a New York ritual. Every morning you'll see people sitting in their cars, on their phones and laptops, waiting for the street cleaning machine to pass (it often doesn't, though the traffic cop always does, cheerfully appending $65 tickets to every empty car) and the drivers must then move the car out and back into the precious spot and wait out the remaining time so they can enjoy the privilege of another day or two of free parking.
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