Now and then, New York City takes a massive step toward social democracy. During the mid–twentieth century, thanks to the New Deal, the power of organized labor, and the mayoralty of Fiorello La Guardia, New Yorkers lived in a city that invested in the lives and leisure of its working class in unprecedented ways, as Joshua Freeman documents in his 2001 book, Working-Class New York. The city invested in affordable housing and public health projects, cheap public transit and free higher education at the City University of New York. Workers could enjoy a subsidized evening out at the ballet, and kids still play on the beautiful ball fields that New York City built in Central Park back then.

Thanks to decades of class warfare from above, the idyll Freeman describes has been much diminished, but some of the social and even physical infrastructure remains, which means New York still has better public goods and a stronger safety net than most other American cities. And at times, we’re still able to expand on these in remarkable ways. A case in point: Mayor Bill de Blasio’s establishment of universal pre-K for all of New York City’s four-year-olds and subsequent expansion of the public preschool program to three-year-olds.

Previously, the city had some decent free preschool available for its poorest residents. But the reason universal programs are so much better politically than means-tested ones is that their universality makes them wildly popular — which means serious political blowback when they’re taken away.