If someone asked you to tell them the story of America…could you?

Well soon the answer will be a strong affirmative! This year is America’s 250th birthday, and my present to the nation is empowering its citizens to tell its story.

While many people have ideas about what America is, precious few of them could even provide a basic outline of its history. Instead, they get batted back and forth between extreme (and extremely incorrect) views on social media: that America is the source of all modern evil, or that America is blameless perfection.

These view lack the texture, detail, and kind of soul that makes people compelling as well as nations. America’s history is far more surprising, and captivating, than most would expect.

And: it is our home, and the home of our friends and family. And it is worth understanding one’s home—its institutions, its past, its path dependencies, and its stories. These not only help us make sense of the present in practical terms, they are an animating force in civic life.

And so: I am leading a book group to read through Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. It’s an accessible, sensible history of the United States. The book group is open to anyone, anywhere in the US (and beyond!). I will host reading events and other field trips here in NYC, and of CivLab will anchor SF. Otherwise, if you sign up, I’ll put you in touch with others in your area.

JOIN THE GROUP

Reading group details:

• Begins the week of April 13, ends no later than the week of June 29 (you have to finish by the Fourth of July!)

• You need to get your own copy of Land of Hope. The default reading pace is about 50 pages a week.

• Participants will go into a directory for everyone to browse, and I’ll create a Discord if that makes sense.

• If you’re in NYC, I’ll host regular reading hours and some field trips in the city.

• What you do in the reading group is up to you! Invite your friends, host your own small reading groups, post online about what you learn, and more!

• The expectations and etiquette for this reading group are the same as those for the Foundations of New York class.

• The reading group is free to participate in, although you need to buy your own copy of Land of Hope. However, I will suggest a $50 donation (if you can) to help offset time and planning.

From the introduction to Land of Hope:

It means to offer American readers, young and old alike, an accurate, responsible, coherent, persuasive, and inspiring narrative account of their own country—an account that will inform and deepen their sense of the land they inhabit and equip them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. “Citizenship” here encompasses something larger than the civics-class meaning. It means a vivid and enduring sense of one’s full membership in one of the greatest enterprises in human history: the astonishing, perilous, and immensely consequential story of one’s own country. (xi)

Content

• Application overview

• What you will know how to do, and have done, by the end of the class

• General class structure and information

• Class expectations and etiquette

• About your instructor

• Class syllabus

APPLY HERE

Application Overview

Applications are open from March 23 through April 8 (5pm EST). Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, and sooner is definitely better.

I’ll inform all applicants of their status, successful or not, by April 10 or sooner, depending on when they apply. I aim to answer each application within a week of its submission, although historically it can take a few days longer. If you have not heard back from me by then, feel free to shoot me an email: daniel@maximumnewyork.com.

Summary of requirements and sessions

• Evening Section Time: 6:30-8:30pm, Tuesdays, April 14 through June 2. Final exam on June 6.

• Location(s): Near Herald Square

• Prerequisites: None

• Completion reqs: you must pass the in-class midterm with a 95% or above, and the final exam with 90% or above. While homework does not determine whether you pass the class, it is best treated as mandatory. I will track who submits their homework, and what they submit.

Tuition

The class costs $0–2,000 per seat. After acceptance, you will receive a Stripe checkout form via Jotform to pay tuition. You may adjust the cost downward to the extent required for you to afford the class.

APPLY HERE

What you will know how to do, and have done, by the end of the class

• You will have conceptual clarity about words like statute, administrative law, commissioner, and more.

• Draw a basic timeline of New York City’s political history, and a basic timeline of important land use laws at the city and state level that impact the city.

• You will know what political capital is, how to get it, and how to use it. You will graduate with more than you started. You will feel like you “know how to do government things” on a basic level, in part because some of your homework requires it.

• Draw a robust map of the New York City political system, with its basic dependencies at the state and federal level. You will be able to describe every individual component on the map, how they relate to each other, and how soft and hard power change the government as described on paper.

• Answer the question “What is the law?” for NYC. You will know the answer to this question for every locality, state, and the federal government in general terms as well.

• Describe the process by which laws are made in New York City—not just statute, but rules as well.

• Draw a basic map of the five boroughs by hand.

• Recite “The New Colossus” from memory.

• Much more.

General Class Structure and Information

Meeting Time & Place

Class will meet for about two hours on Tuesdays, beginning April 14 and ending June 2.

Non-class important dates:

• June 6: Your final exam will be on June 6, conducted in the Rose Reading Room of the New York Public Library. It will be a multi-hour, written blue book-style exam.

• June 7: Your end-of-semester party and graduation celebration will be the evening of June 7. (Your exams will be graded very quickly.)

Class Structure:

Classes will be structured as seminars, not 2-hour lectures. In the first meeting of most “Foundations” classes, I will draw a map of the government on the whiteboard, and students will be the peanut gallery (it’s open season on questions and comments). We will repeat this exercise in various forms, including competitive ones, in each meeting.

There will be breaks about every 30-40 minutes. Eat snacks and do what you need to do then, but not during class—I will strictly enforce this (but can, have, and will, make arrangements for people who need them). Further: if you are sniffly, you must blow your nose.

Attendance:

You ought not miss more than two of the class sessions. But if something comes up, just let me know as far in advance as possible. Life will always intervene, and we will work around it.

If you are going to be late to class, you will need to text or email me with your approximate ETA. Don’t feel embarrassed or squirrely about being late, just let me know so I can conduct class accordingly.

Class Preparation, Homework, and Exams:

• There will be readings for each class, small class projects, and homework that isn’t attached to any specific class, but must be completed before the exam. Plan to allocate at least 1-3 hours a week for this work on top of your 2 hours of class time.

• You will have an in-class midterm during class 4. You must get a 95% or above to pass, and you are required to pass. If you get an 94% or below, you will need to show up early to class 5 for a retake. If you fail that, we will discuss class exit options.

• Your final exam will be given in a 3-hour window on June 6. It will be an extensive, hand-written review of the knowledge you will have acquired in the class. You must get a 90% or above to pass this exam. There will be no retakes. If you fail, you will still be welcome at our end-of-semester party.

• Pre-class quizzes. You will have to complete an online quiz before each class that reviews all material we’ve covered in class up to that point. You must get 100% on it, but you may retake it as many times as you need.

• You must complete three “witnessing government” assignments. You will attend government/political meetings and respond to a variety of prompts based on what you witness. There will be evening, weekend, remote, and pre-recorded options; however, the most productive event is a live City Council meeting during the work day. You must complete these assignments to pass the class.

• You must write, and publicly publish on the internet, one piece of short writing in this class (subject to professional considerations as necessary). Part of learning about government and politics is cultivating the courage to speak to the world about it in your own way. You will find that either they aren’t listening when you start, or, suddenly, they are. Writing still moves the world, especially in policy.

• Join the Maximum New York Discord. Class participants will be added to a Maximum New York Discord server, which will be our primary mode of communication for coursework, office hours, and general discussion. There will be a code of conduct you need to accept to join the Discord, similar to the class expectations and etiquette outlined in the next section.

Relentless standards, relentless support

• You will be held to a high standard in this class, and when you meet those standards you will understand government better than almost anyone in the city, and—I mean this—the nation. But you must do the work.

• I will help you. I have taught this class in various forms over the years, and it has gotten more vigorous over time. The class is designed to assist you in your learning, and I do not want anyone to fail (most don’t). As we will discuss in detail during class 1, you will have ample opportunities to work with me, Maximum New York alumni, and others as you go through this class. There will be regular office hours.

• I challenge you to embrace this opportunity with relish. Work hard for a few weeks, and you will simply not recognize yourself at the end of this class. You will not be able to look at the world, or the city, the same ever again. But you will look at it from a position of understanding, and agency.

• The plain fact of the matter is I want you to be the best. I want you to cause people to take a step back when you speak about government and politics. I want you to gain and productively wield political power. I want you to endeavor on behalf of New York, and New Yorkers. Your success is my success.

And after the course, the real fun of government and politics begins. It’s an open world.

Class Expectations & Etiquette

Classes are open to anyone who wants to improve the capacity of NYC’s government, with an end toward making NYC larger, more wealthy (both absolutely and per capita), more opportunity-rich, and more enjoyable for everyone. Maybe you want to get deeply involved in politics. Maybe you’re just intellectually curious. Maybe you’re somewhere in between. You’re welcome in any case.

The classroom environment I encourage is one of exploration, curiosity, playfulness, and charity/tolerance; if you have dug-in political ideas, you need to let those go, at least for the duration of the class. We are here to learn how things work first and foremost, although larger questions of political philosophy absolutely come into play at various points. You should think about politics as a systems problem with no perfect solutions, but still plenty of good ones.

The class has three attitudinal postures that will be encouraged, the opposites of which will be discouraged:

• Stick-to-it-iveness

• Mental toughness

• Positive attitude

This class has four formal rules of etiquette that you must follow:

1. Politics is a good word, and a potentially beautiful thing. We are here to learn how to do government as friends, in a chill fashion, even while dealing with weighty issues.

2. No bullshitting, aka be concrete. We’re here to learn together, but we’re doing it in a rigorous fashion. You must always strive to deeply understand the reality of governance that underpins your political thought.

3. Extend grace to everyone. We’re here to learn together. Government and politics are complicated fields, and no one knows everything. We will be better, together. There will be no political contempt in class.

4. Find the good time. Taking things seriously does not mean being mad about them. The wider world can pressure people to get mad to prove that they take political ideas seriously. I do not equate anger with either sophistication or dedication, so I relieve you of that burden. Make jokes, be serious, push back, learn a lot. But give yourself (and others) a break while you’re in class.

About Your Instructor

Hello, my name is Daniel Golliher (goll- as in the gall, the nerve, and the audacity; iher- as in how they say “your” where I come from: Gol-yer). I’ve lived in New York City for seven years. Besides my writing on this website, you can learn more about me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and The Algernon Project. I’ve written a few books, play the piano and sax, enjoy all manner of physical fitness, and can’t wait to meet you.

When it comes to understanding government and law, my default response is to simply exert maximum effort.

I graduated from Harvard College in 2014 with a degree in Government1, and since then I’ve worked in the legal industry, a coffee shop, higher ed, the legal industry again, and more. I’ve dedicated myself to Maximum New York since March 2022, when I taught its first class.

Class Syllabus

The following is a general outline of subjects that we will cover in class. Additions and subtractions will be made according to student interest and competency.

The Foundations of New York City will focus on three broad domains of NYC: history, political theory, and political practice. They’ll all be addressed in an integrated fashion, rather than in sequence or isolation.

History is vital, because it reveals why New York is the way it is. Cities are the product of path dependency and lock-in effects, and you shouldn’t govern if you don’t take these into account, because you’ll be producing them no matter what you do.

Political theory is necessary to inspire and motivate. It examines how government has been formed and revised in the past, and gives us the knowledge about how we might do it again now and in the future.

Political practice, otherwise called political strategy, is the study of how to connect political means to political ends. How to do things, not vaguely bullshit with your friends about what someone should do. Politics is as sophisticated as any science, and we will treat it that way. Some vital components of this field are knowledge of the governing structures of the city themselves, and the political players within them.

History:

• The consolidation of New York City in 1898

  • Why consolidate?

  • Effects of consolidation

  • The consolidated government and the Board of Estimate

• Consolidation to WW2: it’s time to build

  • Subway expansion

  • The Bronx: an instant city

  • 1916 Zoning Resolution

  • Skyscrapers!

  • Urban renewal and the Progressive Era

  • The Port of New York and New Jersey, 1921

  • New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), 1934

• 1960s: turning points

  • The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, 1961

  • 1961 Zoning Resolution (!!)

  • Along comes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), 1968

  • Preservationism: the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the Landmarks Law, historic districts, the fight to save Carnegie Hall, and the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, 1961-1965

  • Urban renewal continues: the demolition of Lincoln Square, the rise of Lincoln Center (with a cameo from President Eisenhower), 1955—1969

• The 1970s: change and turmoil

  • The twin towers completed in 1973

  • The Power Broker in 1974 and the end of Robert Moses

  • City bankruptcy of 1975, the intervention of Albany

  • The charter revisions of 1975, Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) and Community Boards

  • The near-demolition of Grand Central Station (1975-1978); compare to the preservation fights of the previous decade

  • The blackout of 1977: literal and spiritual

• The charter commission of 1989 and Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris

• The ghosts of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, how they haunt the city, and whether to exorcize them

Political theory:

• Case studies of creation and revision:

  • 1898 consolidation of NYC and the first city charter

  • NYC charter revisions of 1975 and 1989

• Maximum New York’s political philosophy

  • The means: social technology to develop and knowledge to acquire

  • The ends: actualizing higher expectations for New York City, why and how (more wealth, population, and well-being)

  • The Adams Imperative

  • Outcompeting the anti-politics meme

  • What does it look like to “get involved in politics”? Beyond the stereotypically narrow, often incorrect view

Political practice:

• The NYC government

  • Charter, Local Laws, Resolutions, The Rules, Administrative Code, Parliamentary Procedure, the Zoning Resolution, the Chancellor’s Regulations

  • Branches: Mayor, City Council, Comptroller, Public Advocate, Executive and Administrative Agencies, Borough Presidents, Borough Boards, Community Boards/Districts and co-terminality

  • The Unified Court System of New York State, local courts, and district attorneys

  • Elections, ballot access, and political party governing structure

  • Budget: Expense, Capital, Contract, and Revenue; dependence on Albany and DC.

  • The boroughs: what do they do? Why do we have counties?

  • ULURP: case study on the nature of governmental review and public comment

  • Charter revision commissions: what are they, and what do they do?

  • Local authorities, public-private partnerships, and a mini-module on corporations and corporate law: The New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Central Park Conservancy case studies

• Tracking government and keeping up-to-date

  • Legistar

  • The City Record

  • Rules newsletter

  • New York Law School’s newsletters

  • NYC Open Data

  • Checkbook NYC

  • The Green Book

  • Independent Budget Office

  • Election Returns and the Board of Elections

  • Special topic: court cases

  • Special topic: civic tech tools to track government like citymeetings.nyc and intro.nyc

  • Special topic: blogs, newspapers, podcasts, social media, etc to keep up with

• The city’s external dependencies: NYC in the federal system

  • The NYS government

  • Other state (and national!) governments

  • The U.S. government

  • Public authorities

    • MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

    • NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority)

    • The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

  • Public sector unions and collective bargaining

• Various topics in city politics:

  • The players and their stage: individuals, “the groups,” and office-holders

  • Put up or shut up: the epistemic value of prediction markets in politics

  • Housing: NYCHA, markets, LPC, and zoning

  • Transit: why is it the way that it is?

  • Procurement and city purchasing

  • Law enforcement, Rikers, and the NYPD

  • Other topics that surface during the course

Generally speaking, the United States will require significantly evolved institutions in the 21st century. It will get them somewhere on a spectrum between “we were overcome by events” and “on purpose.” But it will happen, and is happening. America has had plenty of these moments before, where the old republic ceases to be, and a new (hopefully) republic is born.

But the best version of these institutions, more towards the “on purpose” end, will require capital-c Compromise. But I do not yet think enough people understand, really, what that word means in the context of architectonic institutional evolution. Or what it requires.

One of the things I’m working on is an institution of my own squarely dedicated to helping people across society appreciate—emotionally and practically—what this kind of compromise looks and feels like. This means fully understanding reality *on the ground* in Philadelphia in 1787 (it truly is not what most think; it was less certain, and astonishingly impressive on the scale of all human history), or in the aftermath of the Civil War, or at many other hinge points in American political history. You can find other worthwhile stories of grand Compromise in corporate histories too, including current companies like SpaceX.

Why tell these stories?

Because: Fundamentally, most people don’t appreciate the extent to which the American Founders (and Refounders) accepted a compromised vision of what they wanted. People radically underestimate how much the founders subordinated their own vision to a larger, compromised whole. Or what that felt like in the moment, as a participant and a commentator afterwards. Part of the skill of this kind of Compromise is a deep well of internal capacity to live with the compromise itself, and defend it against people who demand no trade-offs.

Regarding the need to Compromise, both the worlds of government and technology have failure modes: a strain of culture of Silicon Valley has acculturated people to full ownership of a vision at arbitrary scale. And also: the era of the influencer politician that sails through a low-turnout primary and a gerrymandered general election accomplishes the same thing—no willingness or skill to Compromise.

And the skill here is not “to compromise or not.” It is “compromise what, when, and why?” None of us is omnipotent on the scale of America (or New York). Compromise will happen with or without us.

Compromise means many things to many people. Some people think of it purely in terms of its downsides. “The structural integrity is compromised, evacuate now.” That is one way of thinking of it, but this means “to compromise to a deadly fault.” Here I’m talking about Francis Bacon’s injunction in Novum Organum (1620) that “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”1 Sheer will always finds a constraint, but all creativity is born of that. Necessity is the mother of invention—when your back is against the hard wall of reality. All great art is a compromise between the artist and the realities of their medium. All great technology is an iterative game between our constrained understanding of reality and reality itself. You cannot force stone to do just anything. You cannot command paint to blend just any way. You cannot demand a rocket that simply goes up when and how you like. But you can still achieve the greatest things done and discovered by humanity nonetheless.

Compromise, in this sense, is a deal that we strike with fundamental constraint to achieve greatness nonetheless. It is something to live up to, not to resignedly accept. It is one of humanity’s greatest abilities.

All human greatness is the product of the extent of our abilities melding with the constraints of physical reality and human society. I am not the least bit deterred or upset about this. It is simply reality, and how wonderful that we can rise as high as we’ve risen despite our imperfect abilities and understandings.

1) Come to office hours on Wednesday or Saturday

For the next couple of weeks I will have office hours on Wednesday (7:30-10am, Manhattan) and Saturday (noon-2pm, Brooklyn). Come if you’re a current or former student, or if you just want to say hello. You can find office hour listings on the MNY calendar.

2) I’m debating the cause of New York’s housing affordability issue on March 11

The debate will be moderated by (give him a follow on Instagram). Tickets went fast, but there will be social media follow up and clips! From the event listing:

Resolution:

​“Poor governance, not market forces, is the primary cause of New York City’s housing affordability crisis.”

​Audience vote before and after. Live Q&A included.

​Debaters

​For the Affirmative: John Ketcham, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow and Director of Cities, and Daniel Golliher, Manhattan Institute Fellow and founder of Maximum New York

​For the Negative: Emily Eisner, Chief Economist, Fiscal Policy Institute, and Michael Kinnucan, Senior Health Policy Advisor, Fiscal Policy Institute

3) Future of AI Demo Day on March 14

Maximum New York is co-hosting this event with .

We’ll be doing quick demos of AI use cases that are…useful! Neat! This isn’t a product demo night, rather a chance to see how everyone around you is using AI tools in their lives.

Whether you’re shoulder-deep in the tools or are just wondering “what are all these people talking about,” you’re welcome to come enjoy the evening. I’ll be doing a demo! At the very least, I’ll show you how I quickly built data.maximumnewyork.com with Claude Code.

Register

4) “The American Founding in One Evening” on March 19

I’m doing another installment of “The American Founding in One Evening,” where I take you on a tour from 1763-1803, the founding forty. The American founding is far stranger than most people know, and we’re going to get into it. I believe that most people, once they become acquainted with it, also find lessons and rhetoric that are useful in the modern day.

Register

“If we raise the taxes on corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers, will they leave?”

This is an empirical question that is distracting New York City’s political and commentator class. It is missing a whole for a part. The question I think these same people should primarily be considering is:

“If we raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers, will the local rate of wealth formation fall?”

Why is this important? Because local wealth formation drives economic growth. And as I discussed in my previous post Economic Growth is the Best, decreasing wealth formation and economic growth by even a small amount has enormous consequences:

In the image below, you can see the difference that a 1%, 5%, and 10% growth rate make over just five years. You could have 5.1% more in the lowest growth scenario, or 61.1% more in the highest. But clearly anything between them is a premium worth gaining too, because your growth rate today affects your growth rate tomorrow.

Within a four year period, the length of a mayoral and city council term, even a one percentage point decrease in economic growth quickly turns into a big loss. That loss will continue forward as the decreased baseline from which future economic growth can come.

The crucial thing to note here: even if wealthy taxpayers and corporations stay in New York after a tax increase, and even if tax revenues go up as a result, it is possible for the rate of local wealth formation to decrease. These load-bearing individuals and corporations might expand their businesses in other places, invest in goods and property elsewhere, and so on.

A rise in tax receipts without corresponding physical taxpayer loss can mask a larger, worse loss in future aggregate wealth via a decreased rate of wealth formation.

And so what looks like a boon for local tax receipts—keeping the rich people, the corporations, and more of their money—can actually still result in a structural disadvantage for New York relative to other, more business friendly places, and a huge loss in future wealth that would have naturally powered more local activity and tax revenue without higher rates.

“Economic growth rate” is the prize people need to keep their eye on. It is what determines whether New York goes further, faster, and whether it continues to fall behind other states like Texas. Tax rates are a related, but subsidiary, question.

The natural counterpoint to this is that increased tax revenue can be deployed by the government to drive local wealth formation via investments in infrastructure, other public goods, and so forth. Like if the city and state can build more subways, that would naturally increase land values, increase the “opportunity shed” of where people could live and work, and generally expand economic growth and possibility. So perhaps the taxes create a headwind for some private wealth formation, but that is offset by public wealth formation.

This is a good point! I’m not sure how one would design an empirical study to actually figure out whether any one theoretical tax increase would result in offsetting public wealth formation. But my strong suspicion is that New York is not using its already nation-leading tax burden in a sufficiently responsible, wealth generating way that justifies more tax increases.1 The money that it already does have experiences an unfortunately common Second Avenue Subwayification—skyrocketing prices for little or middling results. The most egregious example of this is that New York City spends more than $40,000 per student in the public school system, the highest in the nation, but does not get a commensurate best-in-the-nation result for it.2 And yet New York is being outcompeted by Mississippi (good for Mississippi, of course!), despite funding levels several hundred percent less per pupil than New York.

I am not the first person to notice that monitoring the rate of wealth formation should take a front seat relative to the empirical question of whether new taxes will cause New York taxpayers and corporations to physically leave.

Who’s talking about wealth formation

wrote an excellent review of New York City’s fiscal outlook a few days ago:

The more important concern isn’t capital flight but wealth formation. As the Citizens Budget Commission has documented, the state’s share of millionaires is shrinking sharply compared to the rest of the nation — not necessarily because of outmigration but because we’re not generating super-wealthy residents like other places are. New York’s share of the nation’s millionaires fell from 12.7% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2022 — a 31% decline that the Citizens Budget Commission estimates cost the state and city more than $13 billion in income tax revenue in 2022 alone. If we don’t get the tax mix right, this phenomenon might continue or accelerate.

Earlier this month, Steven Fulop, the president of the Partnership for New York City, tweeted:

We want to help Mayor @ZohranKMamdani find a real solution. Let’s move past the relocation debate over taxes - people can argue that forever. The real question is simple: if you were starting or scaling a business today, would you choose NYC if these trends continue?

According to the Citizens Budget Commission:

• NYC already has the highest combined corporate tax rate in the country at 17.44%.

• Matching NJ’s top rate would push NYC to 22.48% — nearly double New Jersey.

That’s a competitiveness problem. Companies may not leave overnight, but they will stop expanding here. This week’s NYC jobs data is a warning sign — and exactly why we’re focused on helping get this right.

And as those two clearly show, the Citizens Budget Commission has been talking about this point and larger questions of city competitiveness for a very long time.

What is that jobs data that Fulop mentioned?

As plenty of people have pointed out, including New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, New York City’s production of jobs would be negative without taxpayer-funded home healthcare jobs, which are also relatively low-wage and don’t pay much back in taxes. Otherwise, 2025 saw a net decrease of 38k jobs, following a years-long downward trend in high wage jobs especially.

For further detail, see the city comptroller’s Annual State of the City’s Economy and Finances 2025, particularly the stark chart below.

The Citizens Budget Commission puts the issue well here:

New York City’s job recovery and growth has been largely due to more health and social assistance jobs. This represents a two-fold challenge. First, this sector pays wages on the lower end of the spectrum. Second, a large part of the growth has been driven by New York State’s rapidly expanding, Medicaid-funded home care program, which is unaffordable and should be reined in.

Point of reference: when I have discussed this with people, they wonder how hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created with Medicaid funds. The key to understanding this is that New York spends more per capita on Medicaid than any other state. Of the ~$260 billion annual state budget, about $116 billion is Medicaid. Per the state comptroller:

In SFY 2025, federal Medicaid spending totaled $69.2 billion out of a total of $115.6 billion. Total Medicaid spending is projected by the Division of the Budget (DOB) to grow to $133.7 billion in SFY 2029, of which $73.1 billion is expected to be federally funded.

Per the Empire Center:

New York’s Medicaid spending per resident, at $4,942, was by far the highest among the 50 states. The second-highest state was Kentucky at $3,989 per resident, and the national average was $2,791 per resident.

Finally: about half of New York City residents are enrolled in Medicaid.

So is the rate of local wealth formation decreasing?

The caution lights are definitely blinking. Between New York’s decreasing rate of formation of millionaires, the bad jobs data, and continually being outcompeted by other states like Texas, the answer seems to be “yes” in some way. (All of the people and families leaving New York are certainly taking massive amounts of skill and capital with them, and a higher tax burden will not help if it’s not spent well.)

More of the political class would do well to pay direct attention to economic growth as an indicator of New York’s health and trajectory, rather than the more culturally distracting, although still important, question of tax rates.

Trajectory matters

The lesson of economic growth is that gains compound over time, so a slightly smaller positive growth rate makes a huge difference. Negative growth rates can get astoundingly bad.

When I was younger, before I had really grown to know and love New York as I do today, I got a copy of A Short History of New York State published by Cornell University Press. It was published in 1957, which turned out to be more of a turning point than its readers might have realized. Later that year, Sputnik achieved orbit and ignited the space race. And New York’s days at the largest state in the union were essentially over. Although it would take a few more years for the Census Bureau to make it official, New York had dropped below quickly growing California, and had further yet to fall.

The second half of the twentieth century was, for New York, a story of interrupted trajectory. For most of the nation’s history we had been the largest state.

From 1960 through 2025, New York State’s peers in population growth were Iowa and Pennsylvania, which with West Virginia round out the bottom four.

The fastest growing states in that time were to the south and west.

Cities and states that embrace trajectory can completely remake themselves for the better well within one lifetime. New York City’s incumbent advantages, especially its built environment, are great. I would ask elected officials to consider what it could become with a different trajectory. How do you get more oranges, rather than squeezing the one you have even harder?

Post scriptum, on taxes

During this post, and others, I talk about taxpayers in a relatively clinical way, as if they’re just boxes on a spreadsheet. How much do they bring in? How many are there?

When thinking purely in terms of a government budget, this makes sense.

However: taxpayers are also people. When I think about tax policy, I keep that front and center. Every tax dollar taken from a person means they can’t deploy it how they would like in their life, even if they worked hard for it. Ideally, the government has a good reason for spending it instead.

Plenty of people recognize this about taxes, and they treat “the taxpayer” and “the public purse” as serious, morally significant concepts. The public shouldn’t mind paying taxes—even if they’re not thrilled—if they get the public goods they want and need, and the government should take care to spend that money wisely on their behalf. This is the functional version of a social compact.

I do not like any talk or action that threatens the social contract from either end. New York has special trouble with two on the government end at the moment:

• A lot of public money is not spent well. It’s the phenomenon of Second Avenue Subwayification.

• A contingent of people who talk about “rich people leaving” speak about them like a bully who has cornered their prey. They say “Where else are you going to go? No other place has all the nice things you like!” They hold the incumbent advantages of New York City—density, social graphs, subways, opportunity—hostage in this scenario, often even if they support laws that could not have created those advantages, or would impair them today. I think it’s fine to talk about raising taxes, a taxpayer’s responsibility, a government’s obligation to spend well, all of it—but the way in which one talks about it matters.

After watching city politics for the past month, I keep coming back to the same thought: economic growth, which should be at the center of policymaking, is drifting further to the margins.

So here are some quick thoughts on what I think it is, and why it’s important:

1. “Economic growth” is a deep and slippery concept that can be tamed

2. The importance of economic growth will always be underestimated, because it is non-linear

3. The prize for winning a pie eating contest doesn’t have to be more pie (economic growth is developmental, not merely accumulative)

4. Economic growth is a front in the meme wars

5. The challenges of economic growth

   • Managing transformation

   • Managing economic parasites

6. Excelsior

1) “Economic growth” is a deep and slippery concept that can be tamed

Answering “what is economic growth” often gets subtly misanswered as if the question were “what are the metrics of economic growth”? The conversation then immediately turns to discussing whether GDP is a good metric, or many other versions of two people talking past each other. I’ll attempt to sidestep that by explaining myself up front. The concept of economic growth is so large and nuanced that it can seem daunting, but I think you’ll know what I mean at the end of this section.

My base definition of economic growth: It is growth in the economy, which is improvement in the way we live our lives—our work gains us more, and we are able to acquire and use better things; it is a substitution of a less good thing for a better thing. You could put this in terms of production, distribution, consumption, capital, labor, or time. But in my head, the broadest sense of “economic growth” is that the listed items improve when measured against the standard of human flourishing.

Micro- and macroeconomics as a frame: Economic growth could be considered on the individual basis (you get a better job, your company gains market share), or the society-wide basis (your nation has higher incomes, it fosters more innovations). These would be economic growth as seen from the perspective of microeconomics and macroeconomics, respectively. You need to look at both views, which are greater than the sum of their parts.

Political economy as an important conceptual superset: The broad improvements in the capacity of living that characterize economic growth are not isolated. There is no such beast as just the economy. Economies are fundamentally tied to their larger political, cultural, and institutional structures (e.g., government, law, currency, etc). So for me, the phrase “economic growth” generally comes to mean “economic growth, which requires a sufficiently successful co-evolution with the institutions of a society.” This is more like the older term political economy from which economics was extracted. When I discuss economic growth, I draw lines between “public/government” and “private” to isolate concepts for analysis, but I do not ultimately draw lines between them out in the world.

Growth is good. I treat the default, base case of “economic growth” as good. Of course there are bad, suboptimal, or corrupted versions of it, just like there are bad, suboptimal, and corrupted versions of physical human growth (e.g, cancer). But the base case is good, and that’s what I mean unless I say otherwise. Further: (1) it is conceptually proper to assert this good default meaning, and (2) something bad is going on when the people of a society have a default bad view of the phrase “economic growth.”

2) The importance of economic growth will always be underestimated, because it is non-linear

Economic growth does not merely accrete, it compounds. The more you have, the more you get.

I made a comparative economic growth model you can play around with, but it reveals the familiar lesson of compound interest. It also sharply illustrates why a higher economic growth rate is good, and how much a society loses out on by growing at a slower rate than it otherwise could have.

In the image below, you can see the difference that a 1%, 5%, and 10% growth rate make over just five years. You could have 5.1% more in the lowest growth scenario, or 61.1% more in the highest. But clearly anything between them is a premium worth gaining too, because your growth rate today affects your growth rate tomorrow.

The reality of compounding growth is stark if you ask: “What’s so bad about tolerating a 1% growth rate if you could have more, Daniel? It’s not like you’re losing anything.”

Well—in the chart above, a 10% growth rate over five years got us 61.1% growth. That’s stunning, and society would be getting very rich, very fast if that were happening. This kind of thing has happened in the world.

As the chart below shows, it would take 48 years to get that same 61.1% improvement with a 1% growth rate.

But the differences don’t end there. Every society has some minimum viable growth rate that results in the populace having an experience like “wow, these are good times that we’re in, things are getting steadily better.” If your society experienced a 61.1% jump in economic growth over five years, you’d likely be very happy! You would probably want that to continue, and there would be good arguments for the institutional arrangements that facilitated that growth. Since you “felt the growth,” you’d have a positive default attitude toward it, and would be reluctant to approve of policies or cultural attitudes that could hurt it.1

The opposite is true if you fall below the minimum viable growth rate. At that point, people feel “we should try something different, things just aren’t improving.” And that feeling is not so wrong! In the same way that slow internet is worse than no internet, low economic growth might as well be no growth at all. People do not feel the growth, and so are much more amenable to a default bad view of the concept of economic growth.

My view: on a societal level, one cannot persuade enough people about the value of economic growth with math and charts. This can only be done with a growth rate high enough to make its value viscerally apparent.

Since economic growth is generally an exponential phenomenon, the human mind does not grasp the consequences of it as readily. People think of it as a linear phenomenon, and so wildly underestimate how much and how quickly their lives and society can improve with just a few percentage points more of growth.

We saw this with COVID, which was also exponential. People did not grasp how it could be seemingly nowhere today, and everywhere next week.

But economic growth is good! As a general platform for governance, it is the single most important thing to me, along with respecting a certain kind of rights.2 If someone in a governance position does not have a plan for economic growth, and doesn’t see a dial in their head with the imaginary growth rate created by their policies, I consider it one of the severest defaults they could have.

In his 2018 book Stubborn Attachments, Tyler Cowen lays out the consequences of economic growth well:

Looking into the more distant future makes the question of the economic growth rate all the more important. For instance, a two percent rate of economic growth, as opposed to a one percent rate, makes only a small difference across the time horizon of a single year. But as time passes, the higher growth rate eventually brings about a very large boost to well-being. To make this concrete, here’s an experiment: redo U.S. history, but assume the country’s economy had grown one percentage point less each year between 1870 and 1990. In that scenario, the United States of 1990 would be no richer than the Mexico of 1990.

It is also worth pondering some comparisons with higher rates of economic growth, of the sort we often see in emerging economies. At a growth rate of ten percent per annum, as has been common in China, real per capita income doubles about once every seven years. At a much lower growth rate of one percent, such an improvement takes about sixty-nine years.

Robert E. Lucas, Nobel Laureate in Economics, put the point succinctly: “The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are staggering: once one starts to think about [exponential growth], it is hard to think about anything else.”

Even if you don’t regard material wealth as central to human well-being, economic growth brings many other values, including, for instance, much greater access to the arts and education. Economic growth also gives individuals greater autonomy and minimizes the chance that their destiny will be determined by the time and place in which they were born (pp.40-41).

3) The prize for winning a pie eating contest doesn’t have to be more pie

If you’ve worked in a certain part of the corporate world, you might have heard the phrase “The prize for winning the pie eating contest…is more pie.” It’s what someone wearily says as they accept another load of work right after a busy season, or what they say to you as they drop that load of work on your desk instead.

Culturally, most people speak as though this is true about economic growth—it’s purely a phenomenon of getting more pie, or “growing the pie.” More of the same.

This is an accumulative view of wealth. But economic growth requires a developmental view.

For example: economic growth doesn’t just result in you having more money in your bank account, or just more of the consumer goods that are available. It results in a different society with different options. It’s not growing the pie, it’s substituting it for a whole other food.

It means having the option to buy something today that you couldn’t have had at any price yesterday. It is why You Are Richer than John D. Rockefeller.

You can get a feel for the “more pie” error by thinking about past visions of the future. For example, one might have thought we’d have wildly better communication in the future, because we could write a letter and send it into a vast system of pneumatic tubes to its recipient. The actual reality of future communication was not just “more pneumatic tubes.” It was the internet and modern phones.3

The “grow the pie” vision of economic growth and old science fiction both make the mistake of projecting the present into the future incorrectly. One must instead imagine how the future will developmentally grow out of the present.

But the pie fallacy isn’t just limited to view of economic growth. It applies to decay as well. If you have a negative growth rate, you won’t just have less of what you have today at higher prices. Many things might just cease to exist, and your society will change in big ways (see The Foundation Effect). You might, unfortunately, become as rich as John D. Rockefeller.

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson nailed the incorrectness of the “economy as pie” metaphor in the introduction to their 2025 book Abundance:

Perhaps you’ve heard the cliché that the economy is a pie we must grow rather than slice. It is hard to know where to begin with what this image gets wrong, because it gets almost nothing right. If you somehow grew a blueberry pie, you’d get more blueberry pie. But economic growth is not an addition of sameness. The difference between an economy that grows and an economy that stagnates is *change*. When you grow an economy, you hasten a future that is different. The more growth there is, the more radically the future diverges from the past. We have settled on a metaphor for growth that erases its most important characteristic.

[…]

Imagine going to sleep in 1875 in New York City and waking up thirty years later. As you shut your eyes, there is no electric lighting, Coca-Cola, basketball, or aspirin. There are no cars or “sneakers.” The tallest building in Manhattan is a church. When you wake up in 1905, the city has been remade with towering steel-skeleton buildings called “skyscrapers.” The streets are filled with novelty: automobiles powered by new internal combustion engines, people riding bicycles in rubber-soled shoes—all recent innovations. The Sears catalog, the cardboard box, and aspirin are new arrivals. People have enjoyed their first sip of Coca-Cola and their first bite of what we now call an American hamburger. The Wright brothers have flown the first airplane. When you passed into slumber, nobody had taken a picture with a Kodak camera or used a machine that made motion pictures, or bought a device to play recorded music. By 1905, we have the first commercial versions of all three—the simple box camera, the cinematograph, and the phonograph.

Now imagine dozing off for another thirty-year nap between 1990 and 2020. You would wonder at the dazzling ingenuity that we funneled into our smartphones and computers. But the physical world would feel much the same. This is reflected in the productivity statistics, which record a slowing of change as the twentieth century wore on. This is not just a problem for our economy. It is a crisis for our politics. The nostalgia that permeates so much of today’s right and no small part of today’s left is no accident. We have lost the faith in the future that once powered our optimism. We fight instead over what we have, or what we had.

[…]

It is routine in politics to imagine a just present and work backward to the social insurance programs that would get us there. It is equally important to imagine a just—even a delightful—future and work backward to the technological advances that would hasten its arrival. Bastani’s vision is bracing because it insists that those of us who believe in a fairer, gentler, more sustainable world have a stake in bringing forward the technologies that will make that world possible. That is a political question as much as a technological one: those same technologies could become accelerators of inequality and despair if they’re not embedded in just policies and institutions (pp.11-13).

4) Economic growth is a front in the meme wars

To some people, the phrase “economic growth” means some version of “spiking short term gains for the few at the long term expense of the many.” Or it means “the rich get richer, but not anyone else.” Or it means “the government has no role at all here.” You will find people who harm the healthy concept of economic growth all across the political spectrum.

In other words, they conflate a bad or incomplete version of economic growth with the whole concept.

It’s this conceptual move:

Person A: My son is growing, how wonderful!

Person B: You’re a monster. Why do you want him to have cancer?

Person A [putting down their child’s doctor report]: What.

Person B asserts a default bad definition of “human growth” here that seems absurd in context, but this kind of absurdity really does exist with regard to the concept of economic growth. It is often a memetic response against the words “economic growth.”

And this memetic response against the phrase “economic growth” often grows into a general flinch against private initiative in some quarters. For others who have a differently incorrect version of the term, it becomes a flinch against public initiative.

Untangling these conversations requires taking a step back and clarifying what everyone means.

In the political arena, it often just means being brave enough to defend proper economic growth in public in the first place.

5) The challenges of economic growth

Managing transformation

Since economic growth is not merely more of the same, but transformational, it will present challenges to incumbent societal institutions. People might flip to the new way of doing things without thinking about any potential babies in the bathwater.

I don’t think this means avoiding economic growth, because the status quo has its own set of dangers. It is not a safe default by any means, and it can always yield to decay instead of growth. One must simply be mindful.

Economic growth requires innovation in cultural and political institutions to succeed, as well as a careful conservatism when relevant. To use another human growth analogy: as people grow, they go through several important transformations like puberty or parenthood. A person is fundamentally different on either side of those transformations, and must change to carry them off successfully. Not everyone does.

Managing economic parasites

Besides the raw challenge of managing transformation, economic growth also produces surpluses that can attract economic parasites that wind up killing, or severely diminishing the host. There are several versions of this:

Version one: Matt Yglesias wrote about this phenomenon in The stationary bandits of New York City (June 2025). Stationary bandits set themselves up to extract rent from an economy, and in the process block what would otherwise be superior economic growth. Anyone or any institution can become a rentier in this fashion: individuals, companies (non-profit and for-profit), governments, and more.

Version two: wealth can facilitate sloth, and it can facilitate a kind of material security that makes people forget how load bearing certain norms and institutions are; they become too willing to tear things down. Culture is the medium that determines whether large-scale wealth is productively channeled. Figuring out how to get around these blocks, or stopping them from forming, is an essential cultural and political task in the realm of political economy.

6) Excelsior

If we want to live up to New York’s state motto, economic growth must move to the center of the policy agenda.

That definition seems simple enough, until you start tugging on threads. Why can cities decline to assist with the enforcement of enacted federal statute—isn’t federal law supreme? What’s the difference between civil and criminal immigration law? What is the mechanism by which a city “declines”? The list goes on.

“Sanctuary city” is not an easy concept to understand. This is made more difficult by the fact that “sanctuary city” is not a legal designation, and what one city means by it can vary wildly when compared to another. There are also “sanctuary states,” and state law can control the ability of the state’s localities to enact sanctuary policies.

The most confusing thing about the concept out of the gate is that it connotes “immigration law cannot be enforced here, this is a sanctuary from that.” But immigration law can be legally enforced in sanctuary cities.

So what are sanctuary cities really? Let’s take a look.

Table of Contents

• Concepts that undergird sanctuary cities

  • Civil versus criminal law

  • Dual sovereignty

  • The anti-commandeering doctrine

• So what is a sanctuary city in practice?

  • Defining “sanctuary city”

  • What are New York City’s sanctuary laws?

  • What does “declining to assist with federal immigration enforcement” actually look like?

    • Example 1: Refusing to honor ICE immigration detainers

    • Example 2: Mayor Mamdani’s executive order 01 rescinded Adams’ executive order 50, which allowed immigration enforcement to maintain an office on property controlled by the Department of Correction

• Conclusions

  • Immigration law is not easy to discuss, and it cuts across surprising lines, but the truth will set you free

  • The civil versus criminal distinction really matters!

  • Sanctuary cities exist today because of a conservative Supreme Court majority affirming states’ rights

Concepts that undergird sanctuary cities

1) Civil Versus Criminal Law

Civil law and criminal law are often mentioned together as two halves of a whole. This can be confusing, because “civil law” actually has several different definitions, and each as a different relationship to criminal law.

Criminal law defines crimes and their punishments. It is accompanied by criminal procedure, which defines the methods that the government and the accused must follow to verify guilt and (if necessary) implement punishment.

Civil law is a broad concept that can refer to: (1) the law that regulates rights and obligations between individuals (contract law, property law, family law, etc); (2) non-criminal law generally; (3) codified law, as opposed to common law (court decisions); (4) administrative law, the laws about, and made by, administrative agencies for regulatory purposes (think DHS, EPA, etc).

For the purposes of this post, I'm focusing on civil law as non-criminal law—particularly the statutory and administrative law that governs immigration enforcement—which uses civil procedure rather than criminal procedure.

Criminal law and civil law vary in key ways. Two examples regarding trials:

• Evidence: Criminal law requires the government to meet a higher evidentiary burden when determining guilt than civil law does when finding noncompliance.

• Right to a lawyer: There is no right to counsel in civil proceedings like there is in criminal proceedings (no “civil Gideon”).

Why these differences? With regard to evidence: because criminal conviction must determine guilt and punishment, and the accused can have life and liberty directly at stake. People can be locked up or worse based on a criminal conviction (although there is such a thing as “civil detention”)! The stakes of “getting it wrong” are higher than in civil adjudication, which is more about the everyday function of government. With regard to both criminal procedure and the right to counsel: because current jurisprudence interprets the constitution as requiring it.

The takeaway: criminal procedure is often more resource intensive to carry out than civil procedure, and criminal procedure generally has higher hurdles to clear than civil procedure, especially regarding evidence.

2) Dual sovereignty

The United States has a federal system of dual sovereignty; this means both the states and the federal government have separate spheres in which they operate and enforce laws. Some things are only legislated by the states (e.g., most professional licensing), some things are only legislated by the federal government (e.g., coining money), and some things are legislated by both to varying degrees (e.g., criminal law, taxation, marijuana). What determines which sovereign can legislate on something? Fundamentally: the constitution, and those who interpret it, like the Supreme Court.

The line between these sovereignties is constantly shifting. The federal government often wants states to do more on its behalf, and states want to be in charge of their own affairs. The courts largely mediate this tug of war.

If the federal government may plainly not legislate something, but would like the states to do it, they can provide incentives (or threats, depending on where you sit). The most famous modern example is all 50 states converging on the same minimum legal drinking age (MLDA):

Because the 21st amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed States’ rights to regulate alcohol, the Federal Government could not mandate a uniform MLDA of 21. Instead, in 1984 the Federal Government passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act, which provided for a decrease in Federal highway funding to States that did not establish an MLDA of 21 by 1987…Faced with a loss of funding, the remaining States returned their MLDA’s to age 21 by 1988.

But the ability of the federal government to threaten to withhold money is not unlimited. In the 2012 Supreme Court case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the federal government heard a challenge against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). One provision of the ACA expanded Medicaid, and also required states to accept that expansion to keep receiving federal money for Medicaid generally.

The Court held that this threat of funding loss was unconstitutionally coercive (see decision four in the “conclusions” section here):

Chief Justice Roberts, with Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, and Kagan, concluded that the Medicaid expansion provisions was unconstitutionally coercive as written. Congress does not have authority under the Spending Clause to threaten the states with complete loss of Federal funding of Medicaid, if the states refuse to comply with the expansion.

So you can see that the states and the federal government are constantly renegotiating their authority relative to one another, and that there are various legal doctrines that comprise that negotiation, far more than I’ve mentioned.

Immigration law is squarely within the federal sphere, largely contained in the Immigration and Nationality Act within Title 8 of the U.S. Code (statutory law), Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations (administrative law), and court cases that interpret both of these (case law).

Federal law enforcement officers (LEO) can enforce these laws anywhere throughout the nation that they apply. But, although federal LEO can enforce immigration law, they generally cannot compel states (and the localities of states) to assist them. Many states/localities do assist, and they often do so through programs like Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (“ICE”) 287(g) plan. But a growing, significant number do not in varying degrees.

3) The Anti-Commandeering Doctrine

Generally speaking, the anti-commandeering doctrine says that the federal government cannot compel states and their localities to enforce federal regulatory (civil) programs in various circumstances (New York v. United States, 1992). This means DC can’t tell state legislatures to pass certain laws, and it can’t tell the officers of states (governor, sheriff, etc) to carry out federal laws (Printz v. United States, 1997). In other words, it can’t “commandeer” state governments to carry out federal law.1

The anti-commandeering doctrine was established by a series of Supreme Court cases that examined the dual sovereignty inherent in the Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The takeaway: the anti-commandeering doctrine affirms the rights of states to operate as sovereigns independently of the federal government when permitted by the constitution—specifically, they do not have to assist the federal government when it carries out certain federal regulatory/civil law, although they cannot obstruct it. [Note: this is not a blanket permission to get out of federal civil law requirements, and you can find some nuance to the doctrine here.]

So what is a sanctuary city in practice?

1) Defining “sanctuary city”

Now that we’ve outlined the prerequisite concepts of (1) civil v. criminal law, (2) dual sovereignty, and (3) the anti-commandeering doctrine, we can return to the definition of “sanctuary city” that I gave at the top:

A “sanctuary city” is a city that declines to assist (but cannot legally obstruct) federal enforcement of civil immigration laws.

Expanded, this could be explained like this: localities, in compliance with their overarching state law on the subject, may decline to assist the federal government when it seeks to enforce its own civil immigration law in the United States. They may do this because the dual sovereignty of the Tenth Amendment recognizes that states (and their localities) cannot be simply commanded by the federal government in any case. The anti-commandeering doctrine, recognizing dual sovereignty, says that states and their localities may decline to assist in the enforcement of regulatory/civil programs of the federal government, although exactly whether and when they may do this is subject to constitutional interpretation, usually by the Supreme Court.

Since most federal immigration law is civil in nature, and most immigration enforcement is done through administrative law and courts (civil, non-criminal), that means localities are permitted to not assist with most immigration enforcement if they so choose.2

The ways in which they may decline to assist vary. As long as they are otherwise following federal law, they may, for example:

• Decline to share information with federal agencies.

• Decline to collect immigration status information.

• Decline access to city property for the purposes of immigration enforcement.

• Decline to notify ICE when they release someone from local or state custody, regardless of whether that person is legally in the United States.

• And so on.

2) What are New York City’s “sanctuary laws”?

Although there is no official list, there are about six core pieces of local statute that constitute the heart of NYC’s sanctuary city laws. All of them are aimed at some aspect of “the city shall not assist federal LEO with the enforcement of federal immigration law.”

• NYC Administrative Code § 4-210: Non-city personnel, including immigration officials, are limited in accessing city-controlled property.

• NYC Administrative Code § 10-178: City employee time and resources may not be used for immigration enforcement.

• NYC Administrative Code §§ 9-131, 9-205, and 14-154: directions to the Departments of Correction, Probation, and Police to not honor immigration detainer requests from ICE as far as law allows. These sections read very similarly, they’re just directed at different departments.

• NYC Administrative Code § 23-1202: The city limits information sharing with immigration officials.

[Note: Int 0945-2024 was a proposal to repeal most of the bulleted laws.]

If you pop open any of the bulleted items above, you’ll see that they’re crafted to operate within the allowable bounds of federal law. § 4-210 broadly limits access to city property, but section (b) lists all the exceptions to those limits, many of them based on federal supremacy or other superseding law. While federal immigration policy and enforcement are not directly mentioned in the law here, you can see that these restrictions are plainly aimed at non-assistance to them specifically by looking at the legislative record. Local Law 246 of 2017 (which created this law) was handled by the Immigration Committee of the City Council, and the committee report summarizes the bill as “…[requiring] that immigration authorities present a judicial warrant to conduct enforcement activities…”3

And take § 10-178 as another, more direct example of non-assistance. Section (a) specifically says “the term ‘immigration enforcement’ means the enforcement of any civil provision of the immigration and nationality act and any provision of such law that penalizes a person’s presence in, entry into, or reentry into the United States.” It then goes on to restrict city assistance with immigration enforcement to such an extent as allowed by law.

And while the laws bulleted above are directly about non-assistance with federal immigration enforcement, there are other laws on the city books that are part of the same sanctuary city mission, like NYC Administrative Code § 21-977, which was added to city law by Local Law 227 of 2017 (“Requiring the DOE to distribute information regarding educational rights and departmental policies related to interactions with non-local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities”).

3) What does “declining to assist with federal immigration enforcement” actually look like?

Example 1: Refusing to honor ICE immigration detainers

While there are several different ways that a locality can decline to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law, the most salient is refusing to honor civil immigration detainer requests from ICE.

An immigration detainer, in the most literal sense, is DHS Form I-247A, pictured below. It is a civil request that a state or locality hold an individual for up to 48 hours past the time when they would have otherwise been released from state or local custody, so that ICE can take custody of the person. I-247A is a request because it cannot be a command (unlike a judicial warrant from a federal court, which would give ICE or any LEO unilateral authority to execute the warrant).

Per the anti-commandeering doctrine, states and localities may decline to honor these requests. NYC Administrative Code §§ 9-131, 9-205, 14-154 all have a section (b) which flatly states that a detainer request by itself will not be honored. These sections of law refer to the Department of Correction, Department of Probation, and NYPD, respectively.4

Example 2: Mayor Mamdani’s executive order 01 rescinded Mayor Adams’ executive order 50, which allowed immigration enforcement to maintain an office on property controlled by the Department of Correction

On April 8, 2025, the Adams administration issued Executive Order 50 (“AUTHORIZING FEDERAL IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES TO
INVESTIGATE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY ON RIKERS ISLAND”), which allowed federal law enforcement to operate out of property controlled by the Department of Correction (which oversees the city jails, among other things). The operational details are pictured below.

This executive order is permitted by one of the “sanctuary” laws mentioned above, NYC Admin Code § 9-131(h)(2), which says (emphasis added): “Federal immigration authorities shall not be permitted to maintain an office or quarters on land over which the department exercises jurisdiction, for the purpose of investigating possible violations of civil immigration law; provided, however, that the mayor may, by executive order, authorize federal immigration authorities to maintain an office or quarters on such land for purposes unrelated to the enforcement of civil immigration laws.”

Mayor Mamdani’s Executive Order 01 repealed Adams’ Executive Order 50: “All Executive Orders issued on or after September 26, 2024, and in effect on December 31, 2025, are hereby revoked.”

This also points to an important idea: “sanctuary city laws” are not in one neat bundle somewhere. They live in statute, are undergirded by case law, and are also implemented via administrative law and…executive orders. NYC’s first such was EO 124 of 1989.

Conclusions

Immigration law is not easy to discuss, and it cuts across surprising lines

Immigration law is thorny, and it’s not an easy thing to wrap your head around. It does not operate intuitively for many people.

Immigration is not a policy focus of this Substack, but I will likely write more in the future. My goal here was to lay down the foundational guideposts for that writing.

I’ll end with some interesting frictions that can arise as you navigate your own opinions in this area.

The civil versus criminal distinction really matters!

There is both civil and criminal immigration law. Civil and criminal law have different procedural requirements, so which side something falls on is consequential.

Entering the United States without due permission is a crime, per 8 U.S. Code § 1325. But you can also face civil penalties for it, per § 1325(b).

Deportation is a civil remedy, not a criminal punishment (not everyone agrees that that should be the case, see here for an example). This means the procedural hurdles tend to be lower—no right to counsel, etc. This is controlled by case law, see INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 1984 (“Moreover, deportation proceedings are civil actions and the protections afforded defendants in the criminal context do not apply”).

8 U.S. Code § 1227 (“deportable aliens”) lists all of the things that can trigger deportation. They include both civil and criminal actions.

The federal government’s immigration enforcement apparatus is largely civil in nature. This generally allows it to operate faster, but it also means it can be more easily frustrated by states and localities that decline to assist in immigration enforcement.

An exercise for the reader: consider whether and how you would change immigration law. Civil enforcement can be faster, when it’s assisted. Criminal enforcement backed by judicial warrants is more durable, but takes more resources. And so on.

Sanctuary cities exist today because of a conservative Supreme Court affirming states’ rights

Although some “sanctuary action” predates the cases that solidified the modern anti-commandeering doctrine (New York v. United States, 1992, Printz v. United States, 1997), modern sanctuary laws, including New York City’s, rely on the conservative Rehnquist courts of 1992 and 1997 upholding a state’s right to not be commandeered. This was reaffirmed in 2018’s Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association ruling, also from a conservative majority.

[Note: For a further twist, you can read about Arizona v. United States (2012), in which the court limited the ability of a state to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement by means of state statutes that pursue the same ends.]

In each of the four links in this section, you can go see which justices voted which way in each case.

What are mayoral executive orders?

Executive orders direct and govern the activity of government officials and agencies under the executive’s authority. In the case of New York City, that means the mayor issuing directions to members of his administration and city agencies. He cannot issue an executive order directing the activity of, for example, the city council or the governor.

The mayor has the power to issue these directions pursuant to law, including the city charter and state statute; you will find executive enabling authority for these orders up and down the hierarchy of authorities. The mayor does not have a blanket, nebulous authority to issue edicts.

Here are two examples of the law giving the mayor the authority to issue executive orders:

1) The city charter allows the mayor to delegate mayoral powers to another office holder, which can be done via executive order:

City Charter—Chapter 1 “Mayor”, section 8 “General Powers,” paragraph f (emphasis added): “Except as otherwise provided in section eleven, the mayor may, by executive order, at any time, create or abolish bureaus, divisions or positions within the executive office of the mayor as he or she may deem necessary to fulfill mayoral duties. The mayor may from time to time by executive order, delegate to or withdraw from any member of said office, specified functions, powers and duties, except the mayor's power to act on local laws or resolutions of the council, to act as a magistrate or to appoint or remove officials. Every such order shall be filed with the city clerk who shall forward them forthwith to the City Record for publication.”

Mayor Mamdani exercised this power with his second executive order, where he (for example) delegated power to his first deputy mayor, among others.

2) New York state statute allows local executives to declare states of emergency

NY State statute—Executive Law (EXC), section 24 “Local state of emergency; local emergency orders by chief executive” (emphasis added): “Notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of law, general or special, in the event of a disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency within the territorial limits of any county, city, town or village, or in the event of reasonable apprehension of immediate danger thereof, and upon a finding by the chief executive thereof that the public safety is imperiled thereby, such chief executive may proclaim a local state of emergency within any part or all of the territorial limits of such local government…”

Former Mayor Adams used this authority (and the common law authority of executives to secure the public welfare) to issue and renew an emergency declaration related to “…over two hundred thousand asylum seekers [that] have arrived in New York City from the Southern border without having any immediate plans for shelter.” See executive order 902, issued December 29, 2025.

You’ll also note that not all authorities that allow mayoral executive orders specifically use the phrase “executive order,” and New York State’s Executive Law above is one example of that.

Mayoral executive orders are limited in their power

Executive orders often make their “enabling authority” pretty clear, which also shows that they are reliant on law to be issued, not pure executive whim. For example, Adams EO 902 says this: “NOW, THEREFORE, pursuant to the powers vested in me by the laws of the State of New York and the City of New York, including but not limited to the New York Executive Law, the New York City Charter and the Administrative Code of the City of New York, and the common law authority to protect the public in the event of an emergency…”

Also, if you read further in the state executive law that I quoted above, you’ll find this:

Such proclamation shall remain in effect for a period not to exceed thirty days or until rescinded by the chief executive, whichever occurs first. The chief executive may issue additional proclamations to extend the state of emergency for additional periods not to exceed thirty days.

And:

The legislature may terminate by concurrent resolution, such emergency orders at any time.

Mayors can issue executive orders, but they are often defined in scope and operation by superseding state law.

Where can you find mayoral executive orders?

You can find them on the office of the mayor’s website, where they are put out in the form of press releases, and PDFs you can download of the actual EO.

EOs must be posted to the city’s website, per section 3-113.1 of the city’s administrative code.

You can also find them in the City Record, which publishes the general activity of the government. (Just search “executive orders.”)

The theory of executive orders is fractal. If you get a grip on how they work with the mayor, you have a good idea of how they work for governors and the president too.

If you want to know more about presidential orders, you can read more about them here. They operate pretty similarly. You can find presidential EOs (and other executive actions) here.

If you want to know more about New York gubernatorial executive orders, you can read more about them here. You can find gubernatorial EOs here.

I highly encourage anyone to read the actual text of exectutive orders themselves. Commentators on the internet often say what’s in the EOs, and they are often just flat wrong. Look at them yourself!

Truth is the standard, getting things right matters when evaluating mayoral action

When people talk about “what the mayor is doing” or “what the president is doing,” one ought ask: “by which mechanism? Can you link me to it so I can read for myself?” People are sloppy and vague by default when discussing executive actions. We do not have to be; precision and truth are required to understand the political world and improve it.

I published “How to Evaluate the Mamdani Administration” earlier today, just after Mamdani was sworn in as mayor. In the piece, I stressed the need to get at the Truth. That begins by getting basic facts right, caring about precision, linking to original sources so that people can check what you say about them, and understanding the governmental mechanisms one comments upon.

I don’t mean to pick on the X account pictured below, but they tripped out of the gate here. They stated, incorrectly, what Mayor Mamdani’s first two executive orders were, and didn’t link to anything:

My response, which explained that those were not what his first executive orders said, and that they were contained in a third (and more, I should have added!) executive order that—as of this post—has not been formally released on the mayor’s site yet:

Good luck out there, friends!

We’re at the beginning of a new mayoral administration and a new city council. It’s an exciting time, and a turbulent time. Keep your eyes on facts, original documents, and intellectual proxies who do the same.

Happy 2026, everyone! This essay should reach you shortly after midnight, when the official term of New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, begins.

Thus begins the grand democratic task of evaluating our city’s executive as his administration unfolds. There will be challenges when doing this, because:

• Most people do not appreciate how complex New York City’s government and law are. They will comment on it nonetheless, based on drive-by impressions. This will be done on social media, in workplaces, at social gatherings, and in traditional media.

• There are undying fans of Mayor Mamdani, who will be permanently blind to anything he does wrong. They will attack you for pointing at the wrong things. They might accuse you of belonging to the political party they hate, and being paid by people they hate. They will be politically contemptuous.

• There are righteous haters (waiters) of Mayor Mamdani, who will be permanently blind to anything he does right. They will attack you for pointing at the right things. They might accuse you of belonging to the political party they hate, and being paid by people they hate. They will be politically contemptuous.

The haters and the fans both land in “fake” territory of some kind:

puts it well here:

So if you want to know how to evaluate the Mamdani administration, I’ll tell you how I personally approach it.

Truth is the ultimate standard, in the “bend over backwards” way described by the physicist Richard Feynman when discussing what scientists owe the public and each other:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

[…]

I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.1

Put otherwise: Give credit and criticism where they are due, not where ideological hucksters hector you to.

None of this means being wishy washy. Spades should be called spades. But it does mean pre-committing to Truth—Veritas—as one’s final standard, not a political party or a social group’s consensus.

How one might be led astray: the Rent Guidelines Board and Mamdani’s pledge to “freeze the rent” as a case study

I mentioned above that government and law are far stranger and more complex than people expect. While some things are just what they say on the tin, many are not. In “The Law Can Be an Unreliable Narrator,” I gave several examples where reading the actual text of the law would lead you to incorrect conclusions.

Regarding the Mamdani administration specifically: the public discourse will be jammed when it comes time to “freeze the rent.” The mechanism for “freezing the rent” is a determination issued by the Rent Guidelines Board, which works in a very specific way, under very specific legal obligations etched into city and state law, with the state judiciary sitting above it all. The RGB issues its determination in June of each year, which I call “RGB season.” As I’ve previous written:

Pursuant to city (and state) law, the Rent Guidelines Board sets the rate by which one- and two-year leases may change in rent regulated apartments (the “rent guidelines”), which account for about half of New York City’s rental stock (market-rate units are a minority of the rental stock).

Also pursuant to city and state law: the RGB must consider a variety of factors when determining the rent guidelines it sets forth. Per § 26-510 of the New York City Administrative Code, the RGB:

“…shall consider, among other things (1) the economic condition of the residential real estate industry in the affected area including such factors as the prevailing and projected (i) real estate taxes and sewer and water rates, (ii) gross operating maintenance costs (including insurance rates, governmental fees, cost of fuel and labor costs), (iii) costs and availability of financing (including effective rates of interest), (iv) over-all supply of housing accommodations and over-all vacancy rates, (2) relevant data from the current and projected cost of living indices for the affected area, (3) such other data as may be made available to it.”

The RGB is also required to publish the research upon which they base their rent guidelines, which you can find here.

The basic idea: they must balance tenant needs for lower rents, with the reality that buildings have costs that rents pay. Pursuant to law, they cannot just set the rent guidelines however they like. They must be grounded in an analysis that balances multiple factors.2

I can already see the legions of commentators, political activists, and IG stories pumping out very incorrect information about the RGB in the first half of 2026, cresting in June and July. They will likely ignore the legal obligations of the Rent Guidelines Board, and the mayor’s rights and authorities relative to it. But you can already see how “freezing the rent” is not as simple as a mayoral edict, and there’s still so much more to know about the RGB and our rent regulation system (like how the RGB members get their jobs, which is a whole other can of bees)! Sorting through it all requires steadfast attention.

➡️ During RGB season, I run “how does our rent regulation system work?” events. Anyone is welcome, and we focus purely on what the system is, and what the law is. Whether you want to freeze the rent, abolish rent control, or something in between, you’re welcome. And if you have a group and you’d like one of these presentations, drop me a line (these don’t cost anything, but I do hope you have snacks).

If you want a good perspective on the RGB, I recommend following Alex Armlovich on Twitter/X. He’s a current member of the RGB, and he regularly posts about it in a truthful fashion I agree with. If you’ve ever thought “I wish people in government would just say what they think, contemplate the nature of their role publicly, and respond to people,” then here you go! Otherwise, for those who are inclined to build their own understanding, I recommend just reading An Introduction to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board and the Rent Stabilization System.

And: if you want a good example of someone exploring a new area of government, who understands there must be a lot to learn, and who holds truth as their standard, read this piece on New York’s criminal procedure by my friend Fred.

What happens if one elevates partisan motivation, or cowardice in the face of social consensus, above the Truth?

Honestly—probably a lot of nice things, at least at first! You’ll be accepted by the people you’re seeking acceptance from. You might gain followers. You might get applause from an audience!

The question then is whether you’re seeking acceptance from the right people, on the right terms, and whether the applause you’re getting is from a worthy crowd.

And you might not notice that, despite winning accolades from your team, you are actually causing it damage too. By saying easily disprovable things and refusing to correct them, you are being an inadequate advocate:

You do not want inadequate advocates on your team, because the only thing worse for a cause than a powerful enemy is an inadequate advocate. You don’t need to knock a building down if it collapses of its own free will.

However, it’s not always obvious who is an inadequate advocate. For example: one person’s IA is another person’s fierce rhetorical attack dog who wins at all costs. “Doing more harm than good” to a cause is also sometimes a subjective call—which audiences did you alienate with your behavior, and which did you win? What is the balance of effects between these shifting crowds? It all depends on what your cause is, what it values, and who it values.

But, regardless, reality is the ultimate arbiter, even if people refuse to acknowledge it. To return to Feynman:

We’ve learned from experience that the truth will out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work.

How to evaluate the Mamdani administration even though you’re busy: find intellectual proxies

It doesn’t matter how much you know about New York City’s government and law, it’s a massive, complicated system. We all need to rely on other minds that we trust for conclusions we don’t have the time to distill on our own. So our task is to find good intellectual proxies who “bend over backwards” to get at the truth.

The good news: there’s a massive list of publications and people who have a good track record of evaluating things well. None of them has a 100% record, because that’s impossible. But their methods are good, their character is good, and they’re reality oriented.

Here are a few publications/groups that I like, and most of them have social media accounts that are active:

• City Journal ( on Substack) and

• Vital City

• Citizens Budget Commission

• NYC’s Independent Budget Office

• Max Politics Podcast by

• City and State

• (not about NYC, but it demonstrates the best way to dive into the complexity of government)

also wrote a great overview of local news outlets that you can find here. We have a decent amount of overlap!

And if you want more specific recommendations, like “can I have a liberal, a conservative, a non-partisan, etc,” or “someone good on policing, education, transportation, etc” just ask in the comments, and I’ll answer.

Finally: if you want to host an event where everyone puts together their own custom list of people and publications to follow for New York City/State politics, let me know. It’s a good time.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Excelsior.

Content

• Application overview

• What you will know how to do, and have done, by the end of the class

• General class structure and information

• Class expectations and etiquette

• About your instructor

• Class syllabus

APPLY NOW

Application Overview

Applications are open from December 29 through January 13 (5pm EST). Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, and sooner is definitely better.

I’ll inform all applicants of their status, successful or not, by January 14 or sooner, depending on when they apply. I aim to answer each application within a week of its submission, although historically it can take a few days longer. If you have not heard back from me by then, feel free to shoot me an email: daniel@maximumnewyork.com.

Summary of requirements and sessions

• Evening Section Time: 6:30-8:30pm, Tuesdays, January 20 through March 10. Final exam on March 14.

• Morning Section Time: 8:10-10:00am, Tuesdays, January 20 through March 10. Final exam on March 14.

• Location(s): Off Herald Square

• Prerequisites: None

• Completion reqs: you must pass the in-class midterm with a 95% or above, and the final exam with 90% or above. While homework does not determine whether you pass the class, it is best treated as mandatory. I will track who submits their homework, and what they submit.

Tuition

The class costs $0–2,000 per seat. After acceptance, you will receive a Stripe checkout form via Jotform to pay tuition. You may adjust the cost downward to the extent required for you to afford the class.

APPLY NOW

What you will know how to do, and have done, by the end of the class

• You will have conceptual clarity about words like statute, administrative law, commissioner, and more.

• Draw a basic timeline of New York City’s political history, and a basic timeline of important land use laws at the city and state level that impact the city.

• You will know what political capital is, how to get it, and how to use it. You will graduate with more than you started. You will feel like you “know how to do government things” on a basic level, in part because some of your homework requires it.

• Draw a robust map of the New York City political system, with its basic dependencies at the state and federal level. You will be able to describe every individual component on the map, how they relate to each other, and how soft and hard power change the government as described on paper.

• Answer the question “What is the law?” for NYC. You will know the answer to this question for every locality, state, and the federal government in general terms as well.

• Describe the process by which laws are made in New York City—not just statute, but rules as well.

• Draw a basic map of the five boroughs by hand.

• Recite “The New Colossus” from memory.

• How to use software and AI tools to better understand government and help change the political world.

• Much more.

General Class Structure and Information

Meeting Time & Place

Class will meet for about two hours on Tuesdays, beginning January 20 and ending March 10. You can enroll in either the morning section or the evening section; both are on the same day.

Non-class important dates:

You will attend and do each of these things together with students in The Foundations of the Liberal Arts.

• March 14: Your final exam will be on March 14, conducted in the Rose Reading Room of the New York Public Library. It will be a multi-hour, written blue book-style exam.

• March 18: Your end-of-semester party and graduation celebration will be the evening of March 18, location to be determined.

Class Structure:

Classes will be structured as seminars, not 2-hour lectures. In the first meeting of most “Foundations” classes, I will draw a map of the government on the whiteboard, and students will be the peanut gallery (it’s open season on questions and comments). We will repeat this exercise in various forms, including competitive ones, in each meeting.

There will be breaks about every 30-40 minutes. Eat snacks and do what you need to do then, but not during class—I will strictly enforce this (but can, have, and will, make arrangements for people who need them). Further: if you are sniffly, you must blow your nose.

Attendance:

You ought not miss more than two of the class sessions. But if something comes up, just let me know as far in advance as possible. Life will always intervene, and we will work around it.

If you are going to be late to class, you will need to text or email me with your approximate ETA. Don’t feel embarrassed or squirrely about being late, just let me know so I can conduct class accordingly.

Class Preparation, Homework, and Exams:

• There will be readings for each class, small class projects, and homework that isn’t attached to any specific class, but must be completed before the exam. Plan to allocate at least 1-3 hours a week for this work on top of your 2 hours of class time.

• You will have an in-class midterm during class 4, and it will take no more than ~25 minutes. You must get a 95% or above to pass, and you are required to pass. If you get an 94% or below, you will need to show up early to class 5 for a retake. If you fail that, we will discuss class exit options.

• Your final exam will be given in a 3-hour window on March 14. It will be an extensive, hand-written review of the knowledge you will have acquired in the class. You must get a 90% or above to pass this exam. There will be no retakes. If you fail, you will still be welcome at our end-of-semester party.

• Pre-class quizzes. You will have to complete an online quiz before each class that reviews all material we’ve covered in class up to that point. You must get 100% on it, but you may retake it as many times as you need.

• You must complete three “witnessing government” assignments. You will attend government/political meetings and respond to a variety of prompts based on what you witness. There will be evening, weekend, remote, and pre-recorded options; however, the most productive event is a live City Council meeting during the work day. You must complete these assignments to pass the class.

• You must write, and publicly publish on the internet, one piece of short writing in this class (subject to professional considerations as necessary). Part of learning about government and politics is cultivating the courage to speak to the world about it in your own way. You will find that either they aren’t listening when you start, or, suddenly, they are. Writing still moves the world, especially in policy.

• Join the Maximum New York Discord. Class participants will be added to a Maximum New York Discord server, which will be our primary mode of communication for coursework, office hours, and general discussion. There will be a code of conduct you need to accept to join the Discord, similar to the class expectations and etiquette outlined in the next section.

Relentless standards, relentless support

• You will be held to a high standard in this class, and when you meet those standards you will understand government better than almost anyone in the city, and—I mean this—the nation. But you must do the work.

• I will help you. I have taught this class in various forms over the years, and it has gotten more vigorous over time. The class is designed to assist you in your learning, and I do not want anyone to fail (most don’t). As we will discuss in detail during class 1, you will have ample opportunities to work with me, Maximum New York alumni, and others as you go through this class. There will be regular office hours.

• I challenge you to embrace this opportunity with relish. Work hard for a few weeks, and you will simply not recognize yourself at the end of this class. You will not be able to look at the world, or the city, the same ever again. But you will look at it from a position of understanding, and agency.

• The plain fact of the matter is I want you to be the best. I want you to cause people to take a step back when you speak about government and politics. I want you to gain and productively wield political power. I want you to endeavor on behalf of New York, and New Yorkers. Your success is my success.

And after the course, the real fun of government and politics begins. It’s an open world.

Class Expectations & Etiquette

Classes are open to anyone who wants to improve the capacity of NYC’s government, with an end toward making NYC larger, more wealthy (both absolutely and per capita), more opportunity-rich, and more enjoyable for everyone. Maybe you want to get deeply involved in politics. Maybe you’re just intellectually curious. Maybe you’re somewhere in between. You’re welcome in any case.

The classroom environment I encourage is one of exploration, curiosity, playfulness, and charity/tolerance; if you have dug-in political ideas, you need to let those go, at least for the duration of the class. We are here to learn how things work first and foremost, although larger questions of political philosophy absolutely come into play at various points. You should think about politics as a systems problem with no perfect solutions, but still plenty of good ones.

The class has three attitudinal postures that will be encouraged, the opposites of which will be discouraged:

• Stick-to-it-iveness

• Mental toughness

• Positive attitude

This class has four formal rules of etiquette that you must follow:

1. Politics is a good word, and a potentially beautiful thing. We are here to learn how to do government as friends, in a chill fashion, even while dealing with weighty issues.

2. No bullshitting, aka be concrete. We’re here to learn together, but we’re doing it in a rigorous fashion. You must always strive to deeply understand the reality of governance that underpins your political thought.

3. Extend grace to everyone. We’re here to learn together. Government and politics are complicated fields, and no one knows everything. We will be better, together. There will be no political contempt in class.

4. Find the good time. Taking things seriously does not mean being mad about them. The wider world can pressure people to get mad to prove that they take political ideas seriously. I do not equate anger with either sophistication or dedication, so I relieve you of that burden. Make jokes, be serious, push back, learn a lot. But give yourself (and others) a break while you’re in class.

About Your Instructor

Hello, my name is Daniel Golliher (goll- as in the gall, the nerve, and the audacity; iher- as in how they say “your” where I come from: Gol-yer). I’ve lived in New York City for seven years. Besides my writing on this website, you can learn more about me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and The Algernon Project. I’ve written a few books, play the piano and sax, enjoy all manner of physical fitness, and can’t wait to meet you.

When it comes to understanding government and law, my default response is to simply exert maximum effort.

I graduated from Harvard College in 2014 with a degree in Government1, and since then I’ve worked in the legal industry, a coffee shop, higher ed, the legal industry again, and more. I’ve dedicated myself to Maximum New York since March 2022, when I taught its first class.

Class Syllabus

The following is a general outline of subjects that we will cover in class. Additions and subtractions will be made according to student interest and competency.

The Foundations of New York City will focus on three broad domains of NYC: history, political theory, and political practice. They’ll all be addressed in an integrated fashion, rather than in sequence or isolation.

History is vital, because it reveals why New York is the way it is. Cities are the product of path dependency and lock-in effects, and you shouldn’t govern if you don’t take these into account, because you’ll be producing them no matter what you do.

Political theory is necessary to inspire and motivate. It examines how government has been formed and revised in the past, and gives us the knowledge about how we might do it again now and in the future.

Political practice, otherwise called political strategy, is the study of how to connect political means to political ends. How to do things, not vaguely bullshit with your friends about what someone should do. Politics is as sophisticated as any science, and we will treat it that way. Some vital components of this field are knowledge of the governing structures of the city themselves, and the political players within them.

History:

• The consolidation of New York City in 1898

  • Why consolidate?

  • Effects of consolidation

  • The consolidated government and the Board of Estimate

• Consolidation to WW2: it’s time to build

  • Subway expansion

  • The Bronx: an instant city

  • 1916 Zoning Resolution

  • Skyscrapers!

  • Urban renewal and the Progressive Era

  • The Port of New York and New Jersey, 1921

  • New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), 1934

• 1960s: turning points

  • The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, 1961

  • 1961 Zoning Resolution (!!)

  • Along comes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), 1968

  • Preservationism: the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the Landmarks Law, historic districts, the fight to save Carnegie Hall, and the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, 1961-1965

  • Urban renewal continues: the demolition of Lincoln Square, the rise of Lincoln Center (with a cameo from President Eisenhower), 1955—1969

• The 1970s: change and turmoil

  • The twin towers completed in 1973

  • The Power Broker in 1974 and the end of Robert Moses

  • City bankruptcy of 1975, the intervention of Albany

  • The charter revisions of 1975, Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) and Community Boards

  • The near-demolition of Grand Central Station (1975-1978); compare to the preservation fights of the previous decade

  • The blackout of 1977: literal and spiritual

• The charter commission of 1989 and Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris

• The ghosts of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, how they haunt the city, and whether to exorcize them

Political theory:

• Case studies of creation and revision:

  • 1898 consolidation of NYC and the first city charter

  • NYC charter revisions of 1975 and 1989

• Maximum New York’s political philosophy

  • The means: social technology to develop and knowledge to acquire

  • The ends: actualizing higher expectations for New York City, why and how (more wealth, population, and well-being)

  • The Adams Imperative

  • Outcompeting the anti-politics meme

  • What does it look like to “get involved in politics”? Beyond the stereotypically narrow, often incorrect view

Political practice:

• The NYC government

  • Charter, Local Laws, Resolutions, The Rules, Administrative Code, Parliamentary Procedure, the Zoning Resolution, the Chancellor’s Regulations

  • Branches: Mayor, City Council, Comptroller, Public Advocate, Executive and Administrative Agencies, Borough Presidents, Borough Boards, Community Boards/Districts and co-terminality

  • The Unified Court System of New York State, local courts, and district attorneys

  • Elections, ballot access, and political party governing structure

  • Budget: Expense, Capital, Contract, and Revenue; dependence on Albany and DC.

  • The boroughs: what do they do? Why do we have counties?

  • ULURP: case study on the nature of governmental review and public comment

  • Charter revision commissions: what are they, and what do they do?

  • Local authorities, public-private partnerships, and a mini-module on corporations and corporate law: The New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Central Park Conservancy case studies

• Tracking government and keeping up-to-date

  • Legistar

  • The City Record

  • Rules newsletter

  • New York Law School’s newsletters

  • NYC Open Data

  • Checkbook NYC

  • The Green Book

  • Independent Budget Office

  • Election Returns and the Board of Elections

  • Special topic: court cases

  • Special topic: civic tech tools to track government like citymeetings.nyc and intro.nyc

  • Special topic: blogs, newspapers, podcasts, social media, etc to keep up with

• The city’s external dependencies: NYC in the federal system

  • The NYS government

  • Other state (and national!) governments

  • The U.S. government

  • Public authorities

    • MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

    • NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority)

    • The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

  • Public sector unions and collective bargaining

• Various topics in city politics:

  • The players and their stage: individuals, “the groups,” and office-holders

  • Put up or shut up: the epistemic value of prediction markets in politics

  • Housing: NYCHA, markets, LPC, and zoning

  • Transit: why is it the way that it is?

  • Procurement and city purchasing

  • Law enforcement, Rikers, and the NYPD

  • Other topics that surface during the course

And then someone made a light hearted, descriptive reference to a contemporary political figure—not a normative statement, nor a joke. Just a necessary bit of detail for an otherwise non-political comment. The person next to me, upon merely hearing the name, then leaned over to my side of the table and, face twisted with contempt, spat utter poison into the conversation. Both profanity and poor wishes were among the laced words.

The event was not endangered by this, mostly because everyone in attendance did not have a reactionary personality, nor did they take one person’s brief, impolite, misplaced soliloquy as an invitation to debate or conversation—we did not ingest the poison. We simply moved right along, warmly embraced by Christmas charity and togetherness. And the individual with the reactionary moment themselves came right with us, resuming their normally delightful presence. Nothing more was made of the vulture’s shadow that passed over us.

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this kind of interaction—an otherwise amiable person is suddenly seized, as if possessed, by cruelty and disregard. They are seemingly not in control of themselves, and make uncharacteristic statements wishing specific deaths upon others, sexual assault in men’s prisons, and other baldly uncivilized comments. Their facial features twist with pleased bitterness, and their presence triggers the same part of the brain that would activate upon sight of a rabid dog. One knows that they are no longer a trusted interlocutor who can handle things with grace; they must be treated carefully, either to guide them back to self control and sanity, or to excise them from the conversation (and the event, if need be).

What is it that happens to people in these situations? What is the demon that possesses them?

It is contempt.

More specifically, it was political contempt. And for New York and America to secure the future, we must defeat this vice within ourselves and our citizenry. The first step is understanding what we’re dealing with.

Contempt: the terrible spoonful of sugar

Contempt’s essential facet is a psychological distancing between the object of contempt and the contemner. The contemner regards the person or object of contempt as fundamentally outside their moral frame, fundamentally different, and perhaps even subhuman in the most extreme instance. Contempt is an emotional response to encountering a breach, violation, or negation of a value. The strength of contempt is measured by the damage to one’s values, or the expected threat to them. It can be fleeting, or it can be pathological.

And since contempt is an emotional response to one’s values, there can be justified and unjustified contempt. Like justified anger, justified contempt is appropriate, even healthy when expressed well. Justified contempt is felt by an individual who has truthfully appraised the target of their contempt, truthfully appraised their values, and who manages the emotion in a fashion commensurate with that which is contemptible. This individual would also understand that contempt, like anger, burns the spirit and curdles the mind if it’s held more than temporarily. To them, contempt is necessary, but must be used carefully and discarded as soon as possible.

Contempt becomes a problem when it is not justified: when it is stoked carelessly, used expansively, and when its target is never really investigated for any breach of value. Unjustified contempt, which could also be called unearned contempt, but going forward will just be “contempt,” assassinates the character of the contemner. It points at someone and says, “They are not worthy of tolerance, respect, acceptance, or persuasion. They are not even really human like you. Do what you will!” It opens a distance, or a void, and through that void come every barbaric impulse. It is permission.

But why would someone succumb to contempt like this? Why degrade their character and embrace the malice and gleeful bitterness that contempt permits? What made my nice Christmas interlocutor suddenly pursue the destruction of a nice evening of good will? What made them blind to how they would be perceived by others upon such an outburst?

Because contempt is sweet, and it overwhelms internal resistance to unleashing viciousness. It is the spoonful of sugar to make the vice go down. And who has not felt the pleasure of anger? The pleasure of self-righteousness, and the perverse delight in condemning others? The appeal is very clear, and one can see why a sweet little contemptuous treat easily bears them into the soul.

But contempt is sweet like lead. If regularly indulged, it will make you weak, dumb, and ill.

Political contempt: bane of democracy, cancer of the demos

I’m sure everyone reading this essay knows someone, probably several people, who have an atavistically cartoonish view of whomever they view as “the bad guys” in politics. They cannot be talked out of their sensationalized view of these villains, and even truth in the form of easily verifiable, understandable information is no help. And there is no middle ground with them, only “friend” or “enemy.”

Per Andy Masley:

Under discussed bad thing that happens to people is getting really attached to having very specific bad guys in their pantheon, because it adds narrative structure to their lives. I've seen people's thinking get completely clouded by what looks from the outside like little acts of worship of specific bad guys' roles as bad guys. Every discussion just circles back to psychic warfare on the astral plane against the bad guy rather than what's actually helping the world.

At the base of this worldview is often political contempt. The politically contemptuous have cast certain people and groups as “the bad guys,” placed vast psychological distance between themselves and those people, and in so doing completely excuse themselves from having to understand, persuade, live with, or tolerate them. The only thing left to do is treat them as the demons that contempt says they are, and punish anyone who says otherwise.

This kind of political contempt is non-concrete. It’s easy. It’s political hobbyism’s most common endpoint. It doesn’t require one to actually know anything, just to imbibe algorithmic feeds of short-form video—just put on your team’s jersey and wish death upon the other team! And if anyone comes along and does ask for reasonable substantiation for the contempt, one can always fall back on non-concrete assertion to avoid facing the truth of what political contempt has done to one’s mind and character.

Needless to say, political contempt is acid to a free and prosperous society, and a complete abrogation of de Tocqueville’s society of joiners. A contemptuous political society does not seek to persuade, but to dominate. In many ways, political contempt is the full realization of the dangers of faction, as James Madison famously warned of in Federalist No. 10:

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

In his own time, Abraham Lincoln also recognized that the greatest danger to the United States would not come from the outside, but from ourselves. From his 1838 Lyceum Address:

How then shall we perform [the perpetuation of our political institutions]?—At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?—Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!—All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.1

The leaders of New York City and State also knew that if New York were to fail to live up to its greatness, it would be its own fault. From an 1897 volume of Municipal Affairs discussing New York City’s future, on the eve of the consolidation of the five boroughs (emphasis added):

It is only now that our city has so grown as to begin to realize her natural advantages, only now that the widely extended features of our site begin to coalesce into such a grand and beautiful whole as, until the very plan of the continents is changed, can be realized by no other city on earth. “With its noble harbor protected from injury, and the channels of approach straightened and deepened; with its wharves and docks made adequate for the easy transfer of the vast commerce of the country; with its streets properly paved and cleaned, and protected from destructive upheavals; with cheap, easy and rapid transit throughout its length and breadth; with salubrious and attractive parks in the centres of dense population; with an ample supply of pure water, now nearly provided; with a system of taxation so modified that the capital of the world may be as free to come and go as the air of heaven, the imagination can place no bonds to the future growth of this city in business, wealth and the blessings of civilization. Its imperial destiny as the greatest city in the world is assured by natural causes, which cannot be thwarted except by the folly and neglect of its inhabitants.”2

Political contempt pulls citizens apart, and sets them into enemy camps. It causes New York and the United States to fall to the only enemy that can really threaten it—its own citizenry in disarray. What’s worse, there are people who can profit off of this. The more you watch their shows, listen to their podcasts, buy their merch, seek their validation, and click on their ads, the better off they are. The more you unthinkingly repeat condemnations of “the bad guys,” the more you refuse to look at them for what they fully are, the more you refuse any information that threatens your clean friend/enemy distinction, the more your own ability to live as a free citizen degrades.

Political contempt is dangerous because it is sweet, and because when most people recognize it in themselves, they don’t call it that. They call it righteous fury. And it is so easy to defend limitless righteous fury to oneself:

“But Daniel—the other side wants to destroy everything we love! We can’t tolerate that, you have to draw a line somewhere.”

Of course you have to draw a line somewhere—the paradox of tolerance is that, at some point, you would tolerate your own destruction. But here’s the thing: I often get this argument from people who have never once tried to understand their “other side” as much as they wish their “other side” would try to understand them.

In most circumstances, this is an indication that the person has not really tried, and they want to immediately jump to dismissing people as “other” or “irredeemable.” This kind of person uses the existence of a limit on tolerance as an excuse to abandon it, and the treasures that lay beyond it, altogether.

But if political contempt is so tempting, how can anyone overcome it? Not just the most extreme version of the foaming ideologue, but the everyday refusal to meet or talk with anyone who is different in noticeable ways?

The answer lies in contempt’s essential characteristic: dehumanizing distance. To overcome distance, we must come closer to others. Close enough to see them for what they actually are, and what they actually could be. Close enough to see some improbable connection that, against odds, knits us together. Close enough to live up to the great, binding motto of our nation: E Pluribus Unum.

How to do that can only really be explained by example. So I have three for you.

1) Ayn Rand taught me political and personal tolerance by stoking my love for a young communist named Andrei Taganov.

This particular example is the most funny to me, because it surprises some people in about five different ways at the same time.

While many might know her for the novels The Fountainhead (1943) or Atlas Shrugged (1957), my favorite Rand novel is her first and least known, We the Living (1936). It takes place in post-revolution Soviet Russia, and follows the protagonist Kira Argounova as she tries to make her way in the new world that’s forced itself upon her. She is an individualist, and falls in love with another young man who opposes the Soviets, Leo. But she soon meets and befriends Andrei Taganov, an earnest communist and hero of the Revolution.

Andrei was written as “the best possible communist.” He is honest, sincere, and a moral idealist. He demonstrates physical courage in the face of danger, and lives an austere life dedicated to supporting the new regime that he truly believes will usher in an era of human flourishing. Naturally, he abhors the corruption he increasingly witnesses in the new Soviet regime, regarding many fellow “communists” as vicious opportunists.

Rand in no way wants readers to agree with his ideals, which she regards as a tragic error of knowledge, and a demonstration that bad ideas always come home to roost, but she did purposefully write Andrei as an admirable man. See this exchange between Kira and Andrei:

“Then you do see what these times of yours are?” [asked Kira].

“We all do. We’re not blind. I know that, perhaps, it is a living hell. Still, if I had a choice, I’d want to be born when I was born, and live the days I’m living, because now we don’t sit and dream, we don’t moan, we don’t wish—we do, we act, we build!”

Kira liked the sound of the steps next to hers, steady, unhurried; and the sound of the voice that matched the steps. He had been in the Red Army; she frowned at his battles, but smiled with admiration at the scar on his forehead. He smiled ironically at the story of Argounov’s lost factories, but frowned, worried, at Kira’s old shoes. His words struggled with hers, but his eyes searched her for support. She said “no” to the words he spoke, and “yes” to the voice that spoke them.

Or Kira’s inner conflict over her unmistakable approval of Andrei:

Kira seldom spoke of what she thought; and more seldom—of what she felt. There was a man, however, for whom she made an exception, both exceptions. She made other exceptions for him as well, and wondered dimly why she made them. Communists awakened fear in her, a fear of her own degradation if she associated, talked, or even looked at them; a fear not of their guns, their jails, their secret, watchful eyes—but of something behind their furrowed foreheads, something they had—or, perhaps, it was something they didn’t have, which made her feel as if she were alone in the presence of a beast, its jaws gaping; whom she could never force to understand. But she smiled confidently up at Andrei Taganov.

Or, finally, the scene that solidified my energetic rejection of provincial guilt by association, which also finally gave me an emotional understanding of the story of Jesus sitting down to dinner with sinners:

“Are you going home, Comrade Argounova?” [Andrei] asked.

“Yes, Comrade Taganov.”

“Would you mind if you’re compromised by being seen with a very red Communist?”

“Not at all—if your reputation won’t be tarnished by being seen with a very white lady.”

I first read We the Living at the end of high school, and I remember, as much as I ever had with a fictional character, falling in love with Andrei. I admired his sheer force of will, his commitment, his unimpeachable character—and his sweetness. This would eventually turn into a tragic love, given how his character ultimately ends, but it left an indelible mark on my heart. Like Kira, I wondered at the unmistakeable fact that I felt so strongly, and so favorably, for a revolutionary communist. I abhor that ideology, and yet: here, in my heart and mind, stands Andrei to this day. Whether other people have angels or devils on their shoulder, I do not know. But I at least have Andrei.

The emotional experience of both loving Andrei for his virtues, and also finding a limit based on the values to which he had committed those virtues, created the reference point I use to this day when I encounter someone dramatically different from me, especially in politics. I am reminded to see them for everything that they are, and to interact with the whole. This does not require me to compromise anything I believe, and in fact requires a sharper view when perceiving the souls of others. And unlike Andrei, the people I meet here in reality, and our relationships, are not condemned to a tragic end.

2) Shirley Chisholm and George Wallace: When the first black woman in Congress went to visit the avatar of Jim Crow in the hospital.

When Shirley Chisholm (a New Yorker) was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968, she became the first black woman in our national legislature. Her life story is remarkable, and it’s impossible to do it justice in a post like this. But I most fundamentally admire her dedication to America, and to doing the hard, messy work necessary to keep it all together.

After only serving in Congress for a few years, she decided to run for president in 1972. She opened her candidacy on January 25 of that year in Brooklyn with a speech that began like this:

I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America.

I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud.

I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman and I’m equally proud of that.

I am not the candidate of any political bosses or fat cats or special interests.

I stand here now without endorsements from many big-name politicians or celebrities or any other kind of prop. I do not intend to offer to you the tired and glib clichés, which for too long have been [an] accepted part of our political life.

I am the candidate of the people of America. And my presence before you, now, symbolizes a new era in American political history. I have always earnestly believed in the great potential of America. Our constitutional democracy will soon celebrate its 200th anniversary, effective testimony to the longevity of our cherished Constitution, and its unique Bill of Rights, which continues to give to the world its inspirational message of freedom and liberty.

Beautiful words, but even they underplay Chisholm’s dedication to working within the system to change the system, and preserving America as both an ideal and something to be improved. To get a true sense of that, one needs to examine a pivotal event in the 1972 presidential campaign itself: when George Wallace, a fellow contender against Chisholm for the Democratic nomination, was shot.

Wallace, for those who might not know, delivered these infamous words during his 1963 inaugural address as governor of Alabama (emphasis added):

In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny...and I say...segregation now...segregation tomorrow...segregation forever.

When he was campaigning for president in a suburb of Washington, D.C. in 1972, one member of the crowd met him with a pistol, multiple shots at point-blank range, and injuries that would leave him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.

And while he was at the hospital, Shirley Chisholm paid him a visit to wish for his recovery.

Before rushing to a verdict on her action, take a moment to imagine the dynamics of that situation.

Wallace was segregation incarnate. Chisholm was the first black woman in Congress, and running against Wallace in the presidential Democratic primary. Chisholm needed all the help she could get in her race, and this one visit alienated and angered many people. She knew it would, and she did it anyway. Why? I’ll let her speak in her own words. Here’s an extended excerpt from chapter eight of her 1973 political memoir, The Good Fight, recounting the 1972 presidential campaign (emphasis added):

It was impossible for me not to think of the risk of being attacked, a danger that had occurred to me many times before. Most public figures attract a certain amount of hate mail; I had always received my share, most of it depressingly unimaginative in its obscenity and racial hatred…That unforgettable year of 1968 in which Martin Luther King’s killing was followed by that of Robert F. Kennedy was still fresh in everyone’s memory. Was 1972 to be another, and if so, who would be the next victim?

[…]

Most of the time the possibility is only a faint, nagging thought below the level of conscious attention. But from time to time it surfaces. I could not help musing that the taking of a life was perhaps only an extreme manifestation of the kind of political incivility that had become our national style in recent years. Deep personal hatreds and vendettas have been flaunted at the highest levels…The decline of civility and the mounting crudeness of language in our public life could also be another reason for the disgust of people with politicians and government officials and the contempt manifested toward them. The consequences for public debate and the rational, civilized conduct of public affairs are grave. This collapse in communication is terribly sad. It is a steady tearing asunder of the few threads which bind us together in a society undergoing massive change. It is sad, too, that so many of our public personalities lack size, that tolerance and generosity that spring from self-confidence and goodwill.

When Governor Wallace was reported recovering and able to receive visitors at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, I went to pay him a call. No two candidates, perhaps no two people, could differ more vehemently on many of the issues of public policy, but I could not see that this ought to have any relationship to our private behavior toward each other. With one of my Congressional staff aides and several Secret Service men, I drove out and spent twenty minutes with him. Governor Wallace seemed sincerely touched. He cried for a moment, and so did I. “Is that really you, Shirley?” he asked. “Have you come to see me?” What we talked about was nothing earthshaking; it was like almost any other sick call. I did say at one point, “You and I don’t agree, but you’ve been shot, and I might be shot, and we are both the children of American democracy, so I wanted to come and see you.”

The press was waiting outside when I emerged…Why should my visit be considered so colorful and newsworthy? Had politics, or race relations, reached such a point that it was to be thought of as bizarre? Naturally, some people began at once to speculate on my political motives for the visit. Why were they compelled to look for any? Was it so strange that my motive was only common decency and courtesy? There were black politicians who insinuated that some kind of a deal was being cooked up! One black man from Texas, a delegate pledged to me, was so angry that he threatened to withdraw his support. What hurdles we Americans must still have to clear as we grope our way toward a civilized society, when such a simple gesture is deemed newsworthy and a sign of political intrigue!

During the campaign there was a poster on sale in novelty stores that showed Governor Wallace and me in the famous pose of the painting American Gothic. I never quite got the point, if it had one, and I hope it was withdrawn from the market after the Governor’s tragic injury. But it was true that there was a parallel between George Wallace’s candidacy and mine, and there were places—such as northern Florida and North Carolina—where we seemed to be the only two candidates in the field. Although we represented opposite poles on many questions of policy, we both spoke for groups who felt dispossessed by the establishment and alienated by the course our society is taking. As I noted earlier, Wallace said of me approvingly, more than once, “She’s the only other one who says the same things in Florida that she says in Washington,” meaning thereby to indict his other primary opponents for what we might delicately term inconsistency.

[…]

This tolerance and mutual respect is fundamental to democracy’s survival.

Chisholm wasn’t a saint, and she has that in common with everyone else. But she was one of America’s greatest political dams against the rising tides of political contempt.

I’ll conclude this story with the line that stays most closely with me: “You and I don’t agree, but you’ve been shot, and I might be shot, and we are both the children of American democracy, so I wanted to come and see you.”

3) Friends who set an example, and populate their personal pantheons as others would not

has an excellent thread on Twitter/X where he describes his intellectual relationship with James Baldwin that begins like this:

Matt goes on to pay Baldwin a beautiful tribute by showing us, through excerpts of Baldwin’s work, exactly why Baldwin belongs in his personal pantheon. I highly recommend reading through it. I hope you all have friends like this who openly share their expansive approach to human society and what it has wrought.

Far too few adults speak earnestly about their capacity to love others in this way. What is it that allows love to grow? What makes it endure? What gives it warrant? Can it be increased? What is its role in a world of difference?

Matt’s thread is a contemporary example (unlike my fictional and historical examples above) of the humanism to which I subscribe, relevantly described by Matt like this:

The love of human beings. The love of human nature, human potential, human greatness. An appreciation of human society, a positive sentiment towards one’s friends, and an intense love for one’s closest friends and family and also oneself. Humanism is an acknowledgment of human exceptionalism, of the wonder and power of human agency.

Sic semper contemptui

Political contempt has structural solutions—we can change our information systems. But one cannot wait for that day, and that lone is not sufficient. There is every bit of work to do ourselves in the meantime, and we can all influence what we put into the world.

Thankfully, just as humans possess an innate ability to devolve into contemptuous tribalism, we possess a seemingly unreasonable capacity to find connection among possible enemies, and progress among poisons.

We can gain help, comfort, and inspiration even from those who might otherwise work against us in some fundamental fashions. It should not work that way, and yet it does. And we live in a nation that allows this more than at any other time in history.

It is maddeningly, defiantly human.

It is the same bold defiance that cured my cancer. Failing pleasant oncologic medicine, humanity reached in bold, desperate genius to poisons for help. One could say this is a twisted irony of the universe, and that chemotherapy is a curse. And yet it works. And yet poison has been fashioned against its will into cure. Humanity reached into the toxic maw of death and—crying, screaming, vomiting, bleeding—pulled out dear, precious life.

Why connect with others who are different? Why preserve those connections? Why keep unyielding truth, not social approval, as the standard when evaluating the character of any of your fellow citizens? Why keep them in a pantheon? While it is not the same thing, one might as well ask why use poison to heal? Why fertilize our food with waste? Why grow strong by repeatedly enfeebling oneself in effort?

Because it can be done. Because cultivating a character that resists unwarranted contempt makes one better. Because it increases good in the world. Because it is our nature to bellow defiance at a universe that might not offer us any good options—and then set our hand to the impossible alchemy of turning lead into gold nonetheless. This is one of the great fundamental capacities of our species, and one of its greatest, civilizing achievements.

In a world that might wish you to shut your eyes to this possibility, to deny its reality, to hide the personal strength you could cultivate to embrace it, to forgo the great benefits that follow, or to still your heart wherever it persistently beats, there is only one proper response: I am great enough to do it. New York, and America, are greater than political contempt.

Sic semper contemptui.

The Blue Book Club officially begins in 2026!

After a successful launch in November, the Blue Book Club will return in January 2026, and continue regularly going forward. We started by reading Breakneck by Dan Wang, and we’re going to open the year by reading Tyler Cowen’s 2018 book Stubborn Attachments.

Why Stubborn Attachments?

It’s a book that makes a strong, moral case for economic growth. This idea, and the memeplex that surrounds it, is vital for human flourishing. It also has direct bearing on contemporary political debates surrounding abundance, state capacity, and the ability of our society to deliver. If you attended the first meeting of the Blue Book Club, you will undoubtedly see relevant connections between 2025’s Breakneck and 2018’s Stubborn Attachments. Does Cowen get it right? Does a member of the Blue Book Club have a better take on economic growth? We will find out!

Run of Show

• 12:00pm–12:45pm: Blue Book exam. You will take a handwritten exam on Stubborn Attachments. Pencils down at 12:45pm. You must earn 95% to pass. Most of the exam questions are contained in the final section of this post, though not all. Read well!

• 12:45pm–1:00pm: grading of the exams. While this goes on in a back room, all exam takers are welcome to socialize, have snacks, and enjoy themselves.

• 1:00pm–1:10pm: exams will be returned. Those who passed will stay, those who did not pass will leave at this time. But there is no shame in leaving! Better to die nobly upon the sword than shirk the battle. We hope to see you in the future.

• 1:10pm–3:30pm: based on the number of people who pass the exam, we will commence the main book club event. This might be a small group seminar, or it might be a full unconference. We’ll be prepared to scale as appropriate.

REGISTER TO ATTEND THE BLUE BOOK CLUB

The Blue Book Exam Overview

• What is the full title of the book, including the subtitle?

• Who is the book’s author?

• What year was the book published?

• What is the author’s educational and professional background? What are they doing now? (You can answer this in different ways, with different emphases. Just answer in a way you think is relevant, that demonstrates familiarity with the author.)

• Write out the table of contents exactly as it appears in the book (not page numbers, just the 10 items themselves). For the six numbered chapters, as well as the conclusion, please write:

  • A concrete, thematically accurate summary of the chapter (at least 1-3 sentences).

• What are Cowen’s final conclusions in the book? (You don’t have to recite them entirely, but do explain his thinking.)

• A few other questions to further check reading comprehension.

Note: Blue Book Club attendees should be prepared to show their books and preparation materials for inspection. A bare book with no notes (in the book or outside it) is not a good sign that an individual has engaged with the book deeply enough to respect the time of other Club attendees. You can mark up a physical book, or adapt the markup to a digital copy if necessary.

Other things you can do

• Organize your own reading group with your friends prior to the meeting of the Blue Book Club!

• Post about the book as you read! Tag your hosts: , , (Twitter/X, Substack, LinkedIn, wherever you can find us.)

• Listen to this recent interview between Dan Wang and Tyler Cowen (December 2025) on Cowen’s podcast Conversations with Tyler. See how our first “Blue Book” connects with our second.

Maximum New York’s End of Semester Graduation and End of Year Party!

📍 Lincoln Square
🗓️ Wednesday, December 17
🕕 7:30-9:00pm
🎟️ Register to attend here

We will be honoring the graduates of cohort 13 of Foundations of New York, and cohort 1 of Foundations of the Liberal Arts, in addition to having a final maximum event before people settle in for their end-of-year plans and travel.

If you’re a current student, alumni, or just a pal who wants to swing by and meet lots of cool people who love New York, I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday. We’ll have a delightful group of thoughtful, ambitious, kind individuals actively laying plans for the present and future. And snacks, of course.

• I am now a Cities fellow at the Manhattan Institute! My work there will focus on housing, public order, and the basic mechanics of government.

• has joined Maximum New York as its first Factotum (Jack of all trades, master of…all). He recently worked on Zellnor Myrie’s mayoral campaign, holds a BA in Geological and Earth Sciences from Princeton, and is a distinguished alumnus of MNY itself. He TAs classes, performs research, helps throw events, and a wide variety of other things to come. You can find him on X, LinkedIn, and Substack.

• started a new NYC-focused Substack in April, and now has over 20 posts. He’s a great example of why and how more people should write about our city—in concrete detail, and with great care. If you love New York, write about it!

🗓️ Events

1) The Road Ahead for New York’s Next Mayor

📍 The NYC Bar Association
🗓️ Tuesday, November 18
🕕 6:30-8:30pm
🎟️ Register to attend here

I’ll be giving a talk on the powers and constraints of the mayoralty. If you want to know more about how the office works, how it interacts with other parts of government, and to have a good time with pleasant company, come! This is an “is” event, rather than an “ought” event, and you are welcome no matter how you voted in the recent election. From the event page:

With the mayoral election behind us, attention turns from campaign promises to governing realities. What powers does New York’s mayor actually wield? Which priorities can the new administration realistically advance, and which are constrained by Albany, the City Council, or entrenched bureaucracy?

Join the Manhattan Institute for an in-depth discussion on what to expect under New York’s next mayor, featuring Daniel Golliher, a leading expert on New York City governance. The presentation will illuminate the structure of mayoral authority, the policy levers available, and the political and institutional roadblocks that will shape the next four years…

If you want a bit of a preview of this event, you can read my recent City Journal piece about the powers of the mayor.

2) Office Hours

📍 Fractal Tech
🗓️ Wednesday, November 19
🕕 6:30-8:30pm
🎟️ Register to attend here

The Roosevelt-Riis Association will have its first open office hours in 1.5 weeks, and we invite anyone interested in the organization to come and talk to us! The evening will be mostly unstructured. We’ll have snacks, music, and some lightning talks. Otherwise, come to meet great people and think about the future of NYC.

You can read more about RRA here, and more about the philosophy of our upcoming prize program here. If you want a quick gloss on the ethos of RRA, I’ll leave you with this:

Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose that a corrupt government in this city is a necessity. Neglect and indifference alone have brought us where we are, and energy and determination can alone carry us where we desire to be. Neither passive endurance on the one hand, nor revolution, riot and bloodshed on the other, will do it, but regular, lawful, PERSISTENT efforts will accomplish it… The power, intelligence and capital are here to do it. Remember, with good government we have nothing to fear, and without it, nothing to hope.

— Report of the Citizens’ Association of New York, 1868

3) Maximum New York office hours!

📍 Union Square
🗓️ Tuesdays: November 11, 18; December 2, 9
🕕 7:30-10:00am
🎟️ Register to attend here

Come have coffee with me before work! We can talk about class (if you’re a student), schemes (if you’re a dedicated New Yorker), or meet for the first time.

📚 Which sessions would you like in a lecture series beginning in early 2026?

In addition to the regular slate of classes that MNY offers, we will offer a 10-session lecture series beginning in late January about important topics in government and law. Each session will be structured to stand alone, but they will also build on each other if you want to attend them all. The events will be held in a university auditorium, and have a capacity between 60-100. Unlike the more intensive classes like Foundations of New York, this one will be a lighter touch. There will be voluntary final exam at the end for those who’d like to try their hand at it, but it will not be required at all.

Here is a high-level survey of topics we’re considering for sessions. If you really want one in particular, or want one that’s not listed here, let me know:

• How the city can fund new subways again

• Heuristics for knowing when a political headline/post/article is reliable or unreliable; how to have good political proxies

• What are political parties, actually? What is their technical definition and organizational shape?

• Answering this common question: “I keep hearing about ‘repeat offenders’ who do bad things, and are let out of jail repeatedly. Is that real? How could one even verify those claims? What is the nature and scope of this issue?”

• The rent regulation system

• How does city debt work?

• What is New York’s court system (and why is our “supreme court” not the highest court in the land)?

• How does the city budget work?

• How the subways were originally built and financed

• Public authorities in New York (case study: the MTA)

• How a bill becomes a law, how a rule becomes a law (2-part sessions)

• How to communicate more successfully, and less angrily, about a politics: an is-versus-ought evening

• 1898: the consolidation of NYC, and how the five boroughs merged

• The American Founding in one evening

• The federal government in one evening

• Corporations and corporate law: the missing key to understanding how the government works

• A history of Grand Compromises in New York, and why they are behind many of the things we love and rely on today

• How to read a (federal) Supreme Court opinion

• What is city law, where can you find it, and how susceptible to understanding is it?

🪩 New York’s Hottest Club is…

I went to the New York City municipal library book sale this morning, and it was wonderful. It is truly New York’s hottest club.

• Debt usually takes the form of bonds.1

• New York City makes use of three core kinds of bonds: general obligation, future tax secured, and revenue.2

What is a bond?

A bond is “an obligation to pay a specified amount of money.” It is the usual way that the city “takes out debt.”

It has four basic components:

• Principal: the face value of the bond. Let’s say $100.

• Interest: the money on top of the principal that is paid to the bond holder during the life of the bond. If it’s 1%, then that would be $1 on a $100 bond (paid out at set intervals, like a year).

• Maturity: the life of the bond. Interest is paid during the life of the bond, after which the principal is returned. Bonds can have a maturity of decades, and can also be retired early.

• Collateral/backing: what is the bond backed by? What makes bondholders trust that the bond, and its interest, will be paid?

What is the purpose of city bonds?

From the city comptroller’s website:

New York City sells bonds to finance the construction and repair of infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, schools, water supply, and wastewater treatment systems. The City determines projects through the capital budgeting process. Projects must have useful lives of five years or longer to be funded by debt (three years or longer for information technology projects).

New York City also issues bonds to refinance outstanding bonds for interest savings, which saves money for taxpayers and ratepayers. Refinancing bond sales are strictly economic and do not extend the final maturity of the debt or cause increases in debt expense.

What kinds of bonds are in “New York City debt”?

While there are more specialized forms, almost all of NYC’s bonds fit into three categories:

1. General Obligation (GO) bonds, issued directly by NYC and backed by its general taxing authority.

2. Future Tax Secured (FTS) bonds, issued by entities like the Transitional Finance Authority (TFA), and backed by directly intercepted personal income tax (city can’t touch it). This specific pledge of a dedicated tax revenue that the city can’t otherwise use is distinct from a general obligation.

3. Revenue bonds, issued by authorities like the Municipal Water Finance Authority, and backed by specific, non-tax revenue streams like water charges.

GO bonds are paid through NYC’s regular annual budget process; FTS and revenue bonds are paid from their pledged revenues.

⭐️ Important to note: NYC has a debt limit set in the New York State Constitution; it’s a function of the full value of property within the city (article 8, section 4(c)). In order to get around this debt limit, both the city and state have created separate entities that can issue debt (bonds) in their own name. Even though these bonds might pay for city infrastructure, they do not count toward the city’s debt limit unless specified in state statute. The Transitional Finance Authority (TFA) mentioned above is one such “financing authority.”

1) General Obligation (GO) bonds

GO bonds are sometimes also called “full faith and credit” bonds, because they are backed by the general taxing authority of the city, and are repaid by appropriations in the city’s annual budgeting process.

As a recent GO bond offering says (page 2):

The Bonds are general obligations of the City for the payment of which the City has pledged its faith and credit. All real property subject to taxation by the City is subject to the levy of ad valorem taxes, without limitation as to rate or amount, to pay the principal of, applicable redemption premium, if any, and interest on the Bonds.

2) Future Tax Secured (FTS) bonds

FTS bonds are backed by a specific stream of tax revenue that the city cannot touch. The state collects the money and sends it to the bond issuer to service their bonds.

The Transitional Finance Authority (TFA) issues a lot of these bonds to help finance New York City’s capital program. TFA FTS bonds are backed/serviced by city personal income taxes; the state collects these taxes and transfers them directly to the TFA. In the event that the city does not yield sufficient income taxes, the state (comptroller) can transfer city sales tax revenues to the TFA to cover the difference; this hasn’t yet happened.3

If you want to know more about this, I can recommend no better source than an Offering Circular of TFA FTS bonds itself. Take a look at the “Summary of Terms” section on page 1 (you have to scroll a bit before hitting numbered pages).

3) Revenue bonds

Revenue bonds are backed by a specific, non-tax revenue stream that will be used to service the bonds, like tolls. You often see these issued by the public authorities or development corporations that operate alongside/within New York City. For example:

The Tobacco Settlement Asset Securitization Corporation (TSASC) issues bonds backed by payouts from tobacco companies resulting from a 1998, nationwide settlement:

TSASC, Inc. (“TSASC”) is a local development corporation created pursuant to the Not-For-Profit Corporation Law of the State of New York. TSASC was created as a financing entity whose purpose is to issue and sell bonds and notes to fund a portion of the capital program of the City of New York (the “City”). TSASC issued debt secured by tobacco settlement revenues (“TSRs”), which are paid by cigarette companies as part of their settlement with 46 states, including the State of New York, and other U.S. Territories. The City sold its right to receive TSRs to TSASC. TSASC’s stakeholders are its bondholders, who have purchased TSASC bonds and the City, which benefits from the contribution of TSASC to its capital program.

See this old Independent Budget Office page when the TSASC was first created for cool detail.4

Separately, other authorities that serve the city, but wouldn’t contribute toward “city debt,” also issue revenue bonds. The best example is the MTA.

The MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority), which is a creation of the state, issues revenue bonds that are backed by multiple revenue streams, including fares from its subways and buses. In S&P’s recent overview of the MTA’s revenue bonds, they note that the MTA’s creditworthiness is impacted by how well it can secure the revenue that backs their bonds:

We base the upgrade on several factors we view as providing additional stability and predictability to MTA’s credit profile, including New York State’s decision to increase the payroll mobility tax for MTA’s capital programs, the initial financial success of MTA’s Manhattan congestion pricing program, ongoing recovery in ridership levels, maintenance of healthy liquidity levels, clarity regarding funding sources of the recently approved 2025-2029 capital program, and manageable projected out-year deficits.

Here the report highlights downside credit risk specifically (emphasis added):

We could lower the [Standard & Poor’s Underlying Rating] over the two-year outlook period if weaker fare and toll revenue performance causes persistently weaker all-in net debt service coverage (S&P Global Ratings-calculated) or if we believe the funding of the authority’s capital needs materially weakens MTA’s debt-to-net revenues and liquidity metrics.

This is directly relevant to public discourse. For example: free subways or buses would cause problems with MTA bonds backed by that revenue. As Nicole Gelinas notes in City Journal, navigating that issue successfully will be a key thing to watch in New York City’s near-term future.5

Learn more about city bonds and debt

I’m going to write more posts about bonds and city debt in the future, but you can explore on your own by visiting the city comptroller’s website.

You can also sign up for bond sale email alerts. It’s one of my favorite emails to read.

A lot of what you read will make sense if you’ve mastered the concepts of general obligation, future tax secured, and revenue bonds.

Summary: the Blue Book Club will meet on Sunday, November 16. Attendees will take a rigorous exam on the book Breakneck. If they pass, they will go on to attend the book club event itself. The goal: create a rigorous, lively social scene of book readers. The Blue Book Club will meet regularly starting in January 2026 with an integrated course of books, and the November event is the best way to join us.

Note: supply of the book is low across bookstores and online. If you cannot get a physical copy, proceed with a digital copy! We’ll have some physical copies for you soon.

“I’m going to start a book club.”

These famous last words have been uttered untold times, only for the whole enterprise to come crashing down in hail of people who didn’t do the reading. And even if people did do the reading—how was the reading comprehension?

Well guess what. I’m going to start a book club with Andrew and Priya Rose, and you, as a prospective participant, are guaranteed to be in a room of people who did the reading, and did it well.

Introducing: the Blue Book Club. Our first meeting is Sunday, November 16, at noon. We will be reading Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang. Here’s how the book club meeting will go:

• 12:00pm–12:45pm: Blue Book exam. You will take a handwritten exam on Breakneck. Pencils down at 12:45pm. You must earn 95% to pass. Most of the exam questions are contained in the final section of this post, though not all. Read well!

• 12:45pm–1:15pm: grading of the exams. While this goes on in a back room, all exam takers are welcome to socialize, have snacks, and enjoy themselves.

• 1:15pm–1:25pm: exams will be returned. Those who passed will stay, those who did not pass will leave at this time. But there is no shame in leaving! Better to die nobly upon the sword than shirk the battle. We hope to see you in the future.

• 1:30pm–3:30pm: based on the number of people who pass the exam, we will commence the main book club event. This might be a small group seminar, or it might be a full unconference. We’ll be prepared to scale as appropriate.

Here is what you will need to have done and prepared before you come to the Blue Book Club meeting (see “requirements” section below for details):

• A marked up copy of Breakneck.

See further down the post for more intensive (but not required) things to do before, during, and after reading Breakneck.

REGISTER FOR THE BLUE BOOK CLUB

Why Breakneck?

Breakneck was just released, it’s getting a wide reception, and it hits on one of the most urgently discussed issues of our time: the geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States.

However: most people do not have the experience of rigorously discussing a new book or its ideas. They encounter memes about the book, second-hand impressions of the book that are themselves recitations of half-remembered book reviews, and tweets about the book.

But rigorously reading something like Breakneck, including its own reference materials, will forever change your standards for yourself and others. For example: imagine trying to discuss a book comparing China and the United States without knowing basic Chinese history.

You simply must know what you’re talking about. Your reward for this will be interacting with other people who do the same.

The Blue Book Exam Overview

• What is the full title of the book, including the subtitle?

• Who is the book’s author?

• What year was the book published?

• What is the author’s educational and professional background? What are they doing now?

• Write out the table of contents exactly as it appears in the book (not page numbers, just chapter numbers and titles, including the introduction, acknowledgements, notes, and suggestions for further reading). For the introduction and each chapter, write the following:

  • A concrete, thematically accurate summary of the chapter (1-3 sentences).

• For the acknowledgements section, answer this question: which people were vital to the completion of this book?

• For the suggestions for further reading section: note which of those books you have read, and write 1-3 sentences about whether you would also suggest them for further reading. If you have read none of them, answer this question in 2-4 sentences: How do you think your understanding of Breakneck could be changed if you read any of these books?

• A few other questions to further check reading comprehension.

Note: Blue Book Club attendees should be prepared to show their books and preparation materials for inspection. A bare book with no notes (in the book or outside it) is not a good sign that an individual has engaged with the book deeply enough to respect the time of other Club attendees. You can mark up a physical book, or adapt the markup to a digital copy (and as of this moment, due to supply issues, only digital copies of the book are available).

Recommendations (not requirements) for Reading Breakneck

Do the following before you read:

• Read a summary of Chinese and American history through the 20th and 21st centuries. Try to get the very broad contours of it in your head before beginning the book. A good way to check what you have in your head is to write down what you know without any assistance. You can read any summary you want, but I’ve linked to an example.

• If you want to read the book with a group, organize that on your own.

• Unless you have a good system for reading books digitally that you’re confident in, acquire a physical copy of Breakneck. Acquire a pen. Be prepared to mark the book up in great detail.

• Open the book, and look at the table of contents. Turn to each section and flip through it briefly, reading the first page of each section and quickly skimming the rest.

Do the following as you read:

• Keep a timeline of all the dates mentioned in the book, ideally on a physical piece of paper that you update as you read. It will be helpful to look up the term dates of Chinese and American heads of government throughout the 20th and 21st century ahead of time. If you can print those out and have them handy as you read, even better.

• Have a map of China handy, ideally a paper one you have printed that can be marked up. Mark it up as you read.

• Draw a box around words and references you do not know. Don’t worry about looking each of them up immediately as you encounter them, but do note how much you know and how much you don’t. It is easy to read a book and think you understand a subject as the author understands it—but the boxes will help reveal the daylight between those two things.

Do the following after you are done reading the book:

• Go back through the book, and, if you have not already looked up the boxed items, do so. Make a glossary of people and concepts. If you do not do this, it is likely you will not be able to participate in the Blue Book Club conversation very well. You will likely not pass the exam.

• Write a response paper (or equivalent) to the book; this could be a long thread on social media, a blog post, a book review, etc. Publish it publicly prior to the Blue Book Club meeting date on November 16. If we wind up doing an unconference, this will be especially helpful. Drop a link to it in these comments when you’re done, and feel free to tag me, Andrew, or Priya on X/Substack/LinkedIn/wherever you can find us.

One of the most common social interactions in politics, anti-concrete assertion, goes like this:

Person A: [makes a vague claim] “Did you see what the Supreme Court did? They passed a law saying that X was OK!! It’s all over the news!”

Person B: [asks for very basic information to clarify the claim] Wait, what? What was all over the news? What was the name of that case? What was the question before the Court? Did their opinion say X exactly?1

Person A: [lacks that information, gets defensive about the need to have it, suspects person B of being on the “other team” for not immediately going along with them] “I don’t have time to pay attention to politics like that—it’s unreasonable to ask people to follow things that closely unless politics is their life.”

Person B: “Sounds like it’s unclear what the Court ruled then, or if that was even a case, as opposed to a weird headline.”

Person A: “No, everyone was reporting it. It happened.”

Person B: “We don’t know what happened, and you can’t even really tell me, not even the name of the dang case. So until one of us looks it up, I guess we don’t actually know.”

Person A: “If that were true no one could have opinions about anything. No one has time to follow stuff closely enough to meet your technicalities.”

Person B: “If you don’t have time to validate an opinion about something based on your own knowledge, you can have one based on an intellectual proxy—someone whose overall judgement you have verified to be good, whose word in a specific domain you take as your own. You trust that they have done the work to investigate their claims, and you will trust them until you gain a reason not to, checking every once and a while. So you can’t get out of doing some work. Either you have an opinion based on your own reasoning, you syndicate an opinion from a good proxy, or you don’t really have an opinion. Realistically we all do all three, and in different combinations. You have no choice about that. The only choice is whether you will do this on purpose and well, or unconsciously and without paying attention.”

Person A: “Well I trust the people I heard it from.”

Person B: “Who are those people?”

Person A: “It’s all over the news!”

This is anti-concrete assertion. It is not merely non-concrete, it is a positive assertion that concreteness is unreasonable. It is the lawyer who asserts they need no knowledge of statute, or the engineer who disclaims arithmetic.

Person A above is only half-paying attention to headlines that they agree with, and taking in information from intellectual proxies they have only verified through emotional, tribal, or aesthetic affiliation. They are not taking any time to find out truth, personally or by proxy. They perceive any attempt to understand what they’re talking about as enemy activity, or at least as inherently suspicious. They will say they do not have time to validate their claims, and that this is an unreasonable ask, while still maintaining those claims.

People are often anti-concrete in politics, because becoming concrete would require a significant change to how they operate mentally and socially. They would have to confront the fact that they likely don’t know very much, and that most of their opinions aren’t based on anything other than vague, half-remembered things from the internet. They would have to confront that they don’t really trace things back to their original source, not even once in a while to prove they still have that muscle, or know what it looks like in others who could be their proxies.

They would have to rework their relationship to effort, status, self-image, and more. Concreteness as a rule requires a fundamentally different kind of character than anti-concreteness, so changing from one to the other requires a reworking of one’s character. This naturally cascades into a reevaluation of friendships, allies, and which “teams” one is on. Humans do not like change, so it makes sense that there would be resistance here. But the dislike of change does not alter its necessity in this case, if one wants to apprehend reality.

So if you find yourself wanting to have your very strong political opinions (a tendency we all have), but aggressively defend your inability to explain basic, easily look-upable facts about them (or explain why your intellectual proxy is good)—you have likely fallen to anti-concreteness. There might be a reason—a fear—why you avoid looking anything up.

Anti-concreteness requires that you debase your character further and further over time to maintain itself; it also requires that you push away friends and family who are concrete, because they pose a threat. Anti-concreteness is self-imposed intellectual blackmail (“you’re in too far now to check things, better push away concreteness even more”). There is no functional end to its demands, so it’s better to take the responsibility of being concrete. Otherwise you will have to defend positions you can’t back up.

And the only way to defend indefensible positions is to leave the arena where they need to be defended—reasoned persuasion. Where one goes after leaving that arena is not a place that can support a free, modern, increasingly well-off nation.

Ultimately, you are responsible for your political opinions. Whether you get them from yourself or a proxy, you had to do some evaluation somewhere, and the buck stops with you. Being anti-concrete does not change this, push the responsibility elsewhere, or magically make opinions conform to reality.

Tuesday, September 30: Open Office Hours (7:30am-10am)

🗓️ See the calendar invite here.

Come to office hours if:

• ​You’re a student in one of my classes, and you want to work on homework or discuss class content. If you’re in the Liberal Arts class, you can use this time to lock in reading without a phone.

• ​You want to talk about New York City politics.

• ​You’re interested in Maximum New York and want to learn more.

• ​You want to say “hi”!

​Please RSVP to office hours so you can receive event blasts via Luma; I will use these to say where exactly in the cafe I’ve set up shop.

Tuesday, September 30: MTA Board Meeting Field Trip (9:00am-noon)

🗓️ See the calendar invite here.

Foundations of New York class field trip to the MTA September Regular Board meeting (but if you’re not in class, you can tag along too).

​For more information, see the MTA meeting press release.

Wednesday, October 1: The Federal Government in One Evening (6:30pm-8:30pm)

🗓️ See the calendar invite here.

​In this evening, you’ll walk away with more knowledge about the federal government than almost anyone walking around NYC right now.

​We’ll cover:

• ​Basic history

• ​The shape of the federal government and law

• ​Weird facts about how the government works that you can use as a BS detector when talking to others

• ​How to learn more, and how to think about doing federal politics

​Evening proceedings:

• ​6:30-7:00pm: arrival, snacks, and socializing

• ​7:00-8:00pm: presentation (with breaks)

• ​8:00-8:30pm: socializing

​And make sure you’re ready to embrace the Maximum New York rules of etiquette while at this event.

Saturday, October 4: Lofty Pigeon Bookstore Tour (1:00pm-2:00pm)

🗓️ See the calendar invite here.

We’ll all be introduced to the coolest pigeon themed bookstore in NYC!

​​You’ll get to:

• ​Learn about a cool third space doing cool book things

• ​​Explore a neighborhood you might not have been to before

• ​​Browse a great collection of NYC and non-NYC related books!

​​Proceedings:

• ​​12:30-1:00pm: arrival, and socializing

• ​​1:00-1:20pm: intro presentation from the Lofty Pigeon

• ​​1:20-2:00pm: browsing and more socializing

​After this we will walk over to Green-Wood Cemetery. You can come along or go your separate way.

Sunday, October 5: Meet Maximum New York at the Little Red Lighthouse (12:30pm-2:30pm)

🗓️ See the calendar invite here.

​I’ll be hanging around the base of the Little Red Lighthouse, Manhattan’s only remaining lighthouse!

​Come to hang out, do “seeing” homework if you’re in Foundations of the Liberal Arts, or talk about schemes to make New York City better!

​More about The Little Red Lighthouse.

Prize culture: a culture broadly characterized by individuals and small groups awarding prizes for the production of public, civic, or cultural goods.

The Roosevelt-Riis Association’s concept of “prize culture” is a distinct descendant of “patronage culture,” through which the government and the very wealthy have historically incentivized such work through commissions. Our aim is to deepen the markets for such efforts, expanding liquidity, accelerating timelines, and broadening the universe of potential competition sponsors and entrants.

New York’s history is filled with prizes—a positive incentive to produce some finished product. Central Park’s design came from a prize competition that awarded $2,000 (1858 dollars) to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux for their “Greensward” plan. Then as now, prizes for the production of public, civic, or cultural goods typically came from either the state, corporate entities, or the very wealthy.

One of the Roosevelt-Riis Association’s principal goals is to foster a broad-based culture of prizemaking by enabling individuals to directly engage in it, particularly with their friends. This goal stems from three contentions:

• The RRA recognizes that prizemaking’s norms are still largely anchored in larger, more formal entities that give prizes away on a slower cadence, to fewer people, with slower iteration.

• The RRA recognizes that New York City’s population has over 1 million people who earn $100k a year, and that our city and nation have tremendous, broad-based wealth. The RRA believes that with the establishment of basic foundational norms and social scaffolding, a meaningful portion of these individuals (but not just these individuals) would be excited to participate in a dynamic, decentralized, highly generative culture of prizemaking—a civic economy.

• The RRA recognizes that among the 8.5 million residents of New York are people with just about any type of skill one could imagine. The RRA believes that many of these talented New Yorkers would be excited to deploy their skills in the civic economy if given the opportunity to do so.

To accelerate the creation of this “civic economy,” the Roosevelt-Riis Association will sponsor and organize a system of prizes and bounties related to the RRA’s mission of cultivating active citizenship in support of growth, efficiency, and order in New York City.

Beginning immediately upon its launch next month, it will promote a series of prizes, including standing open competitions and new monthly competitions dropping every month. The RRA Prize Program will generally award prizes of $500-$1,000 at minimum, which will be paid out quickly after prize evaluation—only for the prize slate to be renewed in short order with more opportunities!

Prizes will be put up for the production of writing, video, music, citizen science, events, civic design, industrial photography, physical statuary and 3D printing, and much more. The RRA will set a new cadence for prizemaking, and, through its membership, propagate the norms and soft skills necessary to cultivate a broad-based culture of individual prizemakers.

New York is perfectly positioned for this new prize culture.

There are many individuals walking around the city right now who would not blink (or even notice, in some cases) if one or a few thousand dollars suddenly disappeared from their bank account. That money is absolutely theirs to do with as they please! But the RRA believes they can have a very pleasurable time using some portion of it for prizes that produce positive cultural externalities alongside their personal enjoyment. Imagine a group of five friends getting together and each throwing $4k into a common pot; that’s $20k. What could you get for a prize of that magnitude? A new musical? A new documentary? A statue? A book? A work of art? A small lab to conduct surveys around city infrastructure? It is hard to make a finite list without narrowing the reader’s conception of what can be done, especially considering what technological developments make possible. The limit is mostly our collective imagination, which is precisely why we seek so strenuously to broaden the markets for this type of civic and cultural production.

Now imagine tens of thousands of people were doing this kind of thing, to degrees greater and lesser than $20k, as a regular, casual use of money. A group that is able to structure social norms and status gradients to achieve this cultural transformation would number among the greatest of our city’s historical benefactors, along with the many prizemakers who joined them in the endeavor.

This is what The Roosevelt-Riis Association aims at. The RRA will be a market maker in this new civic economy, and in doing so will spread the social norms and social technology needed for other individuals and groups to begin their own prizemaking efforts.

If successful, the RRA Prize Program will generate a transformational increase in voluntary value exchange for mutual benefit, with massive positive externalities. It represents an expansion of civic markets, making them broader, deeper, and more liquid. Not everything on offer today is all that there could be, and clearly NYC has the talent to produce far more for our civic and cultural spheres than it currently does. The RRA will increase supply by making demand legible through prizes, and will match those with means to those with skills and knowledge. This was the exact beneficial nature of Theodore Roosevelt’s great friendship with Jacob Riis.

Want to know more? Want to help us know more? Want to help RRA fund its prize pool? Want to be a founding member of RRA?

• DM me here on Substack.

• Email me at daniel@maximumnewyork.com.

• DM me on Twitter/X or LinkedIn.

• Sign up for the Roosevelt-Riis Associations newsletter, which will carry our monthly prize slates and more.

Thank you to Tom Laurino-Hanson, co-founder of the Roosevelt-Riis Association, for comments on this essay.

SUBMIT A NEW YORK NOTE

Please send me 150–400 words on either of these themes:

• What is your New York story? We all have one, whether we were born here or came from somewhere else. Here’s some of mine. (This is my favorite prompt, and one of the application questions for my classes.)

• How will New York change significantly between today and a decade from now?

• Many people try to predict New York’s future—but one of the best ways to predict the future isn’t to consider what will change, but what won’t. What will be the same today and a decade from now?

Please send me 40–200 words on either of these themes:

• What is a place, show, event, or other experience that you love in the city, but most people don’t know about?

• What is a practical resource that: (1) improves your life, (2) is low-cost or free, (3) is widely available in New York, but (4) greatly underutilized?