On his second day as mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani stood opposite the Brooklyn Public Library's Central Branch and announced he was signing an executive order creating the Mayor's Office of Mass Engagement, which a press release noted would "revolutionize" how the City handles community engagement.
"Oftentimes, the outreach and engagement of City government is done with an intention to justify a decision that's already been taken," Mamdani said in announcing the new office. "The point of this office is, however, to make decisions with a large part being what the public actually thinks about those decisions."
Governance, Mamdani has emphasized in his first week, will now be happening in a sort of "feedback loop" between residents of the city and its leaders. One of the first examples of this will be "rental ripoff" hearings run by the Office of Mass Engagement across all five boroughs in Mamdani's first 100 days. At those hearings, New Yorkers will be able to share their rental horror stories, which the administration has promised will "directly inform policy interventions."
With the creation of the Office of Mass Engagement, Mamdani is also signaling that he wants the grassroots movement that got him elected to keep going long after his victory, and to somehow fold it into City government itself. It's a recognition that he needs that movement to make his affordability agenda real.