By all measures Zohran Mamdani’s victory was historic. Coming from virtually nowhere, the Queens assemblymember confronted the status quo and painted an inspiring image of what New York City can be. As an architect, I’m thrilled by the opportunities this presents for my industry — to build big for the public good. But current attitudes and self-conceptions about our discipline, tying us more to the ultrawealthy than the working-class majority, risk sidelining us during a moment of historic transformation. Now is a chance for architects to join this movement.

I first heard about Mamdani’s campaign when he called into New York Public Radio’s The Brian Lehrer Show in the fall of 2024 as an unannounced guest. Lehrer had been hosting a series called “100 Years of 100 Things,” and that week’s episode was on American socialism. Mamdani, a relatively unknown assemblyman at the time, took the opportunity to advocate for democratic socialism and launch his campaign.

In the conversation, Mamdani did not advocate for socialism from an ideological standpoint but from one based on results. Noting that he is “always ready to talk about the history of socialism,” Mamdani shared the example of “sewer socialism” in Wisconsin in the early twentieth century. For Mamdani’s platform, which is built on affordability, the precedent was powerful for focusing on improving people’s material lives: “You had socialist mayors who went on to build public health infrastructure, publicly owned power systems, improving workplace conditions, expanding education, truly putting the needs of the working class at the center of city government.” Much of it wasn’t flashy, but these were the real issues affecting working people’s ability to live good lives in the city.