CNN host Fareed Zakaria leveled a sharp critique against the governance of America’s largest Democratic-led hubs on Sunday, arguing that cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are caught in a cycle of skyrocketing spending paired with declining results.
Zakaria’s remarks centered on a growing disconnect between ambitious social promises and the fiscal reality on the ground, specifically targeting what he called the “unaffordability” crisis in deep-blue metropolitan areas.
The catalyst for the discussion was New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed $127 billion budget. The plan, which has already drawn fire from the Washington Post editorial board, includes a 9.5% property tax hike intended to plug a $5.4 billion shortfall.
This move followed New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s refusal to approve Mamdani’s request for tax increases on corporations and high earners. Zakaria pointed to New York as a “prime example” of a broader refusal by Democratic leaders to confront fiscal mismanagement, claiming these cities are “promising more, spending more, delivering less,” and deferring debt to future generations.
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The critique extended to the West Coast, where Zakaria highlighted Los Angeles’ struggles with its homelessness crisis. Despite a $950 million budget allocated for the 2025–26 fiscal year, data shows the problem is intensifying.
Since 2015, homelessness has surged 80% within the city of Los Angeles. Zakaria noted a recent audit of $2.4 billion in city funding which revealed that officials were unable to track where the money went or what it actually accomplished. In a similar vein, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass recently faced scrutiny over public works efficiency and a controversial $1 million price tag for a two-stall public restroom near Runyon Canyon.
Zakaria also touched on Chicago, warning that the city’s massive pension obligations threaten eventual bankruptcy. Across these urban centers, the central theme was the same: massive injections of taxpayer cash have failed to move the needle on quality of life.
In New York, for instance, rental assistance spending jumped from $263 million in 2020 to $1.34 billion recently—a five-fold increase—yet housing costs have only continued to climb. Zakaria argued that government subsidies often inflate prices rather than lower them, suggesting instead that cities should focus on deregulating the housing market to allow for “abundant market-rate housing” to expand the tax base.
The human cost of these policy debates remains high. In New York, twenty people froze to death during a January cold snap, occurring shortly after Mayor Mamdani announced an end to the clearing of homeless encampments.
While mayors like Mamdani and Bass maintain that their budgets are necessary to protect vulnerable residents and fix crumbling infrastructure, critics like Zakaria argue that without a fundamental shift in how these “one-party metropolises” operate, the fiscal and social outlook will only continue to dim.
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