After Hours with Jamie Rubin: A Vital City Podcast

You couldn't have missed it — on Tuesday, June 25, state assembly member Zohran Mamdani won the New York primary, beating favored contender and former governor Andrew Cuomo by 12 points. Everyone and their mother has an explanation for what happened and what a Mamdani mayoral administration would look like. But none have quite the perspective of Bradley Tusk, political strategist and founder of Tusk Strategies. Prior to his current...

A lot goes wrong in New York, and as New York City deputy mayor for operations from 2021-2025, Meera Joshi was responsible for fixing much of it. During her tenure during the Adams administration, Meera led nine agencies that cover all facets of New York City life — from trash to street cleaning to buildings. In this episode, she and Jamie go under the hood of what it looks like to manage an operation of 100,000+ city employees and...

Harvard economist Ed Glaeser and Yale Law School state and local government law professor David Schleicher don’t always agree when it comes to New York politics, but on this mayoral election they do: among the 11 candidates in the crowded field, they insist, most aren’t saying much of anything. Jamie, Ed and David run down this cycle’s policy platforms — the most overplayed, the worst, and, somewhere in the mix, the ones that might...

Housing advocate and Open New York Executive Director Annemarie Gray argues that scarcity drives New York's housing crisis, with restrictive zoning and ULURP processes empowering local opposition to block development. She reveals how both Republican states and progressive Democratic cities outpace New York in housing reform, despite recent wins like "City of Yes" legislation. Annemarie advocates for balancing tenant protections wit...

Government procurement makes up 15% of global GDP. Despite its impact on almost every facet of how people live in cities, it is rarely a topic of research — the data is hard to access and the bureaucratic structures can be opaque. But Ed Glaeser thinks it is time we talk about it. 

 In New York City, procurement dollars often go to waste in inefficient funding processes. Why do we waste so many resources on procurement? (And why is ...