Chicago Mayor Johnson plans to veto new curfew ordinance
Context: The move marks Chicago's first mayoral veto since Mayor Richard M. Daley nixed big box legislation in 2006.
Why it matters: The veto could drive a deeper wedge between the mayor and the majority of the council — along with police superintendent Larry Snelling — who supported the curfew plan.
What they're saying: "I will veto this ordinance because it is counterproductive to the progress that we have made in reducing crime and violence in our city," Johnson said.
"It would create tensions between residents and law enforcement at a time when we have worked so hard to rebuild that trust. Now is not the time to introduce new measures that could undermine those hard fought gains."
Catch up quick: Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) first floated an 8pm downtown curfew in March in response to a shooting near the AMC Theatres in Streeterville after a teen gathering.
In the intervening months, the downtown alder tweaked the proposal multiple times, expanding it from downtown to the whole city and allowing Snelling to customize the curfew start time depending on the situation.
How it would've worked: The measure would have allowed the superintendent, in consultation with deputy mayor of community safety Garien Gatewood, to organize preventative curfew plans days before an event they believed would lead to violence.
Between the lines: Johnson played down his split with Snelling on the issue saying, "the superintendent was selected by me and brought before the City Council by me. It's not policing alone that brings down violence in the city."
The mayor repeatedly recommended that critics read "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America," which examines on how anti-crime policies in Black-run cities unintentionally resulted in more Black incarceration.
"Why on God's green earth would I actually repeat the sins of those who came before us?" Johnson asked during the press conference.
The other side: Supporters of the ordinance, including Ald. Monique Scott (24th) characterized the measure as preventative rather than punitive.
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Los Angeles Times
5 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Why are high school boys drawn to the manosphere?
This boy was lying to me. I could tell from the way he swiveled in his chair, fluffing up and then patting down his shaggy hair. I could tell from the rehearsed sentences he fed me, his voice bored and monotone. 'I'm a white man,' he stated. 'I have a lot of advantages in the world.' Normally, I would have felt pleased that he acknowledged his privilege. It's rare for a teenager to admit they are systematically advantaged. But his eyes were glazed over, and he was checking the time on his phone. I knew he wasn't going to tell me the truth unless I gave him permission. So I paused the recording I was making and leaned in, telling him I wasn't trying to cancel him for racist or sexist opinions. I just wanted to hear his perspective. And when I restarted my phone's voice memo, I was talking to a different person. He knew what he wanted to say; he just didn't think I wanted to hear it. All it took was permission to shed his progressive facade. This didn't surprise me because I know he's not alone. A survey done in the spring of 2025 showed that only 7% of men ages 18-29 thought that diversity, equity and inclusion programs helped them. This aligns with polling that finds 54% of men in the same age range voted for President Trump. Trump's approval numbers have declined among young people, but liberalism is still losing boys my age to the ideology of the manosphere — which is exactly what I heard from my classmate when that facade came down. I knew that boisterous talking heads like Charlie Kirk and Joe Rogan flooded the social media feeds of teenage boys and young men. I wanted to see if this was true even in my own left-leaning high school in New York City. In mid-April, I set out to interview teenage boys in my life. I needed to know if the boys I cared about, that I had hopes for, subscribed to the digital misogyny of the internet. I suspected that young men, especially white and straight ones, were moving toward the right because they felt unwelcome on the left. The fear of being 'canceled' has been ingrained in many teenagers — boys in particular — who attend liberal schools since 2020, when many came to see cancel culture as a life-ruining threat. It was a small step from fearing cancel culture to hating 'wokeism.' To start one interview, I opened my laptop and pulled up four videos: two of Joe Rogan from his podcast, the first talking about open borders and immigration and the second on transgender athletes. One of Andrew Tate ranting about the evils of wokeism and one of Charlie Kirk arguing about systemic racism with a Black college student. In between the clips, I asked my male classmates why they thought these would be enticing or persuasive to young men. The first response I got was about aesthetics. 'You can see in the video he's built,' said a senior, who had to cram in the interview right before a baseball game. 'Athletes are some of the biggest role models for teenage boys.' The mention of appearance reared its head again when a sophomore described Rogan as 'very masculine.' The interviewee, sporting a mullet and a white tank top undershirt, explained that 'a bald guy with a deep voice' is more appealing than 'a woke 25-year-old.' The other recurring theme was that these high school boys spotted the powerful rhetoric and fearmongering they saw on my computer screen. Rogan's views on immigration 'connect to this idea of being under attack,' said one junior boy. White men are 'under siege,' he added. Is this true? I asked. Doesn't matter, he answered: Extreme rhetoric like that 'makes everything just kind of simple and quotable.' It was only when I asked these boys if they were liberal that I got any indication they didn't actually support the men from the videos. Almost all of these teens told me they were liberal, and yet they could see the manosphere's appeal. The rest of us can't afford to stand by. This half of the population needs to feel at home on the left. Democrats should be mindful to welcome young white men who don't agree with every progressive policy, ensuring they are still offered a seat at the table to help create a fairer, more equitable country. The divisive appeal from the other side has proved to be powerful. 'From what I've seen,' one of my classmates told me, the liberals 'say all these [negative] things about young white men and Trump doesn't. … Why would we get behind ill fortune to ourselves?' The president seems to be the champion of a group that will outlast him: young white men who feel that the liberals have made them the enemy. The Democratic Party isn't actually antiwhite or antimale, of course, but it's not enough to say that. Democrats need to make clear that they welcome the support of people who may not agree with every aspect of the left's agenda. Relatability is important as well: Leaders should go where young people are and be likable. 'Going on podcasts can help,' said one junior boy when asked what Democrats can be doing to reach out to younger audiences. 'They need to get views.' These classmates of mine are a few years away from voting. It's their responsibility to fight for healthy discourse, for spaces outside of Instagram and TikTok to talk about politics. Don't consider disagreement the foe of unity, consider it the necessary stepping stone. Demand a space from the left. There is work to be done — so much work. But I have faith that my peers will vote in the future with their mothers and sisters in mind. I just hope I'm not naive to think that. Naomi Beinart is a high school student in New York.
Business Insider
6 hours ago
- Business Insider
Zohran Mamdani wants to freeze rents for New Yorkers. Here's why it's controversial.
The pledge — plastered across T-shirts, tote bags, and campaign mailers across the city — has drawn some of the most energetic support and opposition to Mamdani's campaign. It's not unusual for a New York City mayor to support temporarily pausing rent increases on the city's nearly one million rent-stabilized units, which make up about half of all rental apartments and house more than 2 million people. But Mamdani has gone a step further, promising to replace the members of the Rent Guidelines Board with individuals committed to freezing rents every year of his term. Tenant advocates say that a rent freeze would provide crucial relief to low-income New Yorkers — especially families of color, seniors, and Gen Z renters — in one of the most expensive cities in the country. But landlords say rent freezes would starve many buildings of crucial income needed to maintain and repair stabilized apartments, while some housing economists say depressing rents could discourage much-needed housing construction. Here's what's really going on with Mamdani's rent freeze, and what it would mean for the city. How New York renters are actually doing Mamdani's rent freeze pledge comes as the city's renters are struggling. About a quarter of all city households that don't live in public housing or use a housing voucher are severely rent-burdened, meaning they spend at least half of their income on housing. The typical tenant household earns about $70,000 a year, but citywide median rent hit almost $3,700 a month — or over $44,000 a year — in late 2024. Rent-stabilized apartments make up the biggest share of the city's affordable housing. The median rent in a stabilized apartment was is about $1,500 in 2023 according to the city's latest data — about $141 less than the total median of $1,614 for all rental units. Black, Latino and low-income residents are overrepresented as tenants in rent-stabilized apartments and thus could especially benefit from a freeze. The rising cost of living is making it hard for New Yorkers to stay in the city. "The median income for a rent-stabilized household is $60,000 a year. Any rent hike could push them out of the city," Mamdani said in a campaign video. For now, rents will keep rising. Less than a week after Mamdani's primary win, the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board voted on Monday to raise rents for one-year leases in stabilized units by 3%, and by 4.5% on two-year leases. The board raised rents by a total of 9% during the first three years of Mayor Eric Adams' term. That's up from Adams' predecessor, Mayor Bill De Blasio, who oversaw three rent freezes during his eight years in office and a 6% increase in stabilized rents overall. One of the Rent Guidelines Board members who voted in favor of the rent increase, Alex Armlovich, called it "a nuanced compromise" between competing testimonies from landlords and tenants. The pros and cons of a rent freeze Critics of rent freezes point to a few major issues. They argue that rent increases are needed to allow landlords to keep up with their costs, including building repairs and maintenance. Proponents of freezing rents argue landlords can tap other resources to fill the gap in revenue. Sam Stein, a housing policy analyst with the Community Service Society — a nonprofit focused on aiding low-income New Yorkers, said that city-run targeted programs designed to aid landlords who can't cover the costs are better-suited to address the problem rather than raising rents for all stabilized units. Mamdani and other rent freeze advocates argue that many landlords of stabilized units are doing fine. Indeed, a report by the Rent Guidelines Board found that these landlords' average income, after subtracting expenses and adjusting for inflation, was up 8% between 2022 and 2023. But that number doesn't give a full financial picture, as landlords could have mortgages and other debts, and it's an average across a very diverse array of buildings. Buildings with rent-stabilized apartments range from brand-new, high-end complexes with sky-high market rents and a small number of stabilized units, to 100% rent-stabilized buildings that have had controlled rents for 70 years. That diversity makes it especially tricky to fit a citywide rent increase to all those units. "We have both the newest, healthiest, most expensive rental buildings in the city and the most distressed, low-rent buildings in the city all under one system, and we're supposed to pick one number," Armlovich said. Addressing the housing shortage Fundamentally, New York's affordability problem is caused by a shortage of homes. Recently, apartment vacancy rates hit a more than 50-year low of 1.4%. Some housing economists worry that freezing rents on stabilized units could discourage housing construction, further depressing the supply of homes and hurting affordability. They point to real estate developers who accept tax incentives on new and converted buildings that include a certain amount of rent-stabilized units. Some argue builders would be less likely to take advantage of these programs if the stabilized units brought in less revenue under a rent freeze. Armlovich said that several rent freezes under a future administration would likely only have a modest impact on housing construction broadly. But he worries that an environment of frozen rents could scare off some developers and financiers. "It's just like old conservative, middle-aged bankers being like, 'Oh my god, you want to underwrite a construction loan under socialism?'" Armlovich said. Mamdani has also floated other pro-building housing policies. The candidate has proposed building 200,000 subsidized affordable homes and doubling the city Housing Authority's funding for preserving existing affordable housing, while he's expressed some interest in loosening land-use regulations to spur new construction. What renters and landlords think about a rent freeze While Mamdani's win was something of an upset, lifelong New Yorker John Leyva said it was a reflection of renters' desire to see a mayoral candidate promising to tackle affordability issues head-on. Leyva has been organizing tenants in Brooklyn who he said have been squeezed with rents for the past decade. "I was paying $400 a month for a two-bedroom when I first got here," said the 54 year-old, who's lived in his rent-stabilized apartment for the past 30 years. At the time, he was able to afford college, a car, and rent on a minimum-wage job. "Tenants now have two and three jobs just to try to pay what they can now." Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, said that renters' and landlords' interests don't need to be opposed in solving New York City's affordability crisis, but that a rent freeze isn't the solution. "When it comes to affordability, the only proven way to reduce the rent is increase the supply," Burgos said. With the volume of new housing that New York desperately needs, Burgos said Mamdani will have to work with developers and the private sector to meet that demand if he wins this fall. Property taxes in New York City are the "single largest expense in operating their housing," Burgos said. Without raising rents, landlords are facing a "dire" situation. But Leyva said it's not as simple as supply and demand. It takes time to build new, permanently subsidized housing, and the private sector isn't sufficiently incentivized to do so, he argued, adding that renters need immediate relief.
Business Insider
6 hours ago
- Business Insider
Zohran Mamdani wants to freeze rents for New Yorkers. Here's why it's controversial.
If one slogan defined Zohran Mamdani's successful campaign to be New York City's Democratic nominee for mayor, it might be his call to freeze the rent. The pledge — plastered across T-shirts, tote bags, and campaign mailers across the city — has drawn some of the most energetic support and opposition to Mamdani's campaign. It's not unusual for a New York City mayor to support temporarily pausing rent increases on the city's nearly one million rent-stabilized units, which make up about half of all rental apartments and house more than 2 million people. But Mamdani has gone a step further, promising to replace the members of the Rent Guidelines Board with individuals committed to freezing rents every year of his term. Tenant advocates say that a rent freeze would provide crucial relief to low-income New Yorkers — especially families of color, seniors, and Gen Z renters — in one of the most expensive cities in the country. But landlords say rent freezes would starve many buildings of crucial income needed to maintain and repair stabilized apartments, while some housing economists say depressing rents could discourage much-needed housing construction. Here's what's really going on with Mamdani's rent freeze, and what it would mean for the city. How New York renters are actually doing Mamdani's rent freeze pledge comes as the city's renters are struggling. About a quarter of all city households that don't live in public housing or use a housing voucher are severely rent-burdened, meaning they spend at least half of their income on housing. The typical tenant household earns about $70,000 a year, but citywide median rent hit almost $3,700 a month — or over $44,000 a year — in late 2024. Rent-stabilized apartments make up the biggest share of the city's affordable housing. The median rent in a stabilized apartment was is about $1,500 in 2023 according to the city's latest data — about $141 less than the total median of $1,614 for all rental units. Black, Latino and low-income residents are overrepresented as tenants in rent-stabilized apartments and thus could especially benefit from a freeze. The rising cost of living is making it hard for New Yorkers to stay in the city. "The median income for a rent-stabilized household is $60,000 a year. Any rent hike could push them out of the city," Mamdani said in a campaign video. For now, rents will keep rising. Less than a week after Mamdani's primary win, the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board voted on Monday to raise rents for one-year leases in stabilized units by 3%, and by 4.5% on two-year leases. The board raised rents by a total of 9% during the first three years of Mayor Eric Adams' term. That's up from Adams' predecessor, Mayor Bill De Blasio, who oversaw three rent freezes during his eight years in office and a 6% increase in stabilized rents overall. One of the Rent Guidelines Board members who voted in favor of the rent increase, Alex Armlovich, called it "a nuanced compromise" between competing testimonies from landlords and tenants. The pros and cons of a rent freeze Critics of rent freezes point to a few major issues. They argue that rent increases are needed to allow landlords to keep up with their costs, including building repairs and maintenance. Proponents of freezing rents argue landlords can tap other resources to fill the gap in revenue. Sam Stein, a housing policy analyst with the Community Service Society — a nonprofit focused on aiding low-income New Yorkers, said that city-run targeted programs designed to aid landlords who can't cover the costs are better-suited to address the problem rather than raising rents for all stabilized units. Mamdani and other rent freeze advocates argue that many landlords of stabilized units are doing fine. Indeed, a report by the Rent Guidelines Board found that these landlords' average income, after subtracting expenses and adjusting for inflation, was up 8% between 2022 and 2023. But that number doesn't give a full financial picture, as landlords could have mortgages and other debts, and it's an average across a very diverse array of buildings. Buildings with rent-stabilized apartments range from brand-new, high-end complexes with sky-high market rents and a small number of stabilized units, to 100% rent-stabilized buildings that have had controlled rents for 70 years. That diversity makes it especially tricky to fit a citywide rent increase to all those units. "We have both the newest, healthiest, most expensive rental buildings in the city and the most distressed, low-rent buildings in the city all under one system, and we're supposed to pick one number," Armlovich said. Addressing the housing shortage Fundamentally, New York's affordability problem is caused by a shortage of homes. Recently, apartment vacancy rates hit a more than 50-year low of 1.4%. Some housing economists worry that freezing rents on stabilized units could discourage housing construction, further depressing the supply of homes and hurting affordability. They point to real estate developers who accept tax incentives on new and converted buildings that include a certain amount of rent-stabilized units. Some argue builders would be less likely to take advantage of these programs if the stabilized units brought in less revenue under a rent freeze. Armlovich said that several rent freezes under a future administration would likely only have a modest impact on housing construction broadly. But he worries that an environment of frozen rents could scare off some developers and financiers. "It's just like old conservative, middle-aged bankers being like, 'Oh my god, you want to underwrite a construction loan under socialism?'" Armlovich said. Mamdani has also floated other pro-building housing policies. The candidate has proposed building 200,000 subsidized affordable homes and doubling the city Housing Authority's funding for preserving existing affordable housing, while he's expressed some interest in loosening land-use regulations to spur new construction. What renters and landlords think about a rent freeze While Mamdani's win was something of an upset, lifelong New Yorker John Leyva said it was a reflection of renters' desire to see a mayoral candidate promising to tackle affordability issues head-on. Leyva has been organizing tenants in Brooklyn who he said have been squeezed with rents for the past decade. "I was paying $400 a month for a two-bedroom when I first got here," said the 54 year-old, who's lived in his rent-stabilized apartment for the past 30 years. At the time, he was able to afford college, a car, and rent on a minimum-wage job. "Tenants now have two and three jobs just to try to pay what they can now." Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, said that renters' and landlords' interests don't need to be opposed in solving New York City's affordability crisis, but that a rent freeze isn't the solution. "When it comes to affordability, the only proven way to reduce the rent is increase the supply," Burgos said. With the volume of new housing that New York desperately needs, Burgos said Mamdani will have to work with developers and the private sector to meet that demand if he wins this fall. Property taxes in New York City are the "single largest expense in operating their housing," Burgos said. Without raising rents, landlords are facing a "dire" situation. But Leyva said it's not as simple as supply and demand. It takes time to build new, permanently subsidized housing, and the private sector isn't sufficiently incentivized to do so, he argued, adding that renters need immediate relief. "Lobby for less taxes if that's what's the problem," Leyva said of landlords who feel squeezed by operating costs. "But the tenants can't give more."
