Today’s substack covers what we’re loving, lamenting, and learning from last night’s election results. @catherine-vaughan.bsky.social takes us through how the ballot questions demonstrate how popular building more housing is across the city - new council members take note!

There’s only a few more hours left to vote in this year’s election! Voting YES on the charter amendments will better our city. Here’s how 👇

New Yorkers—don’t forget to flip your ballot today! Voting YES on the charter amendments will help create more affordable housing, modernize our city, and increase voter turnout.

Happy Election Day! Want a more affordable NYC? Here’s what to vote for 👇

New Yorkers, @jesskcoleman said it best - if you’re sick of a rigged housing market, flip you ballot and vote YES on props 2-6.

NYC will add benches to all bus stops by 2035. That’s something, but does the implementation have to be slower than our buses are? Let’s try to get the benches and the buses here faster.

🕸️Happy Halloween, NYC! 👻 With only four days left till Election Day, we wanted to share the tale of “A City Without Charter Reform.” Let this serve as a spooky reminder of what NYC could be if New Yorkers don’t vote YES on Questions 2-6!

The Interborough Express could be NYC’s biggest transit expansion in a century. What’s more, over 70K new homes could be built less than a half mile from the IBX—a chance to build the connected, affordable city we deserve.

New York is breaking its own climate law. We need much more ambitious action to roll out renewables, electrify our grid, and implement cap and invest if we’re going to catch up to the emissions reductions we promised—and need.

We’re with @maragay.bsky.social: the mayoral race has been short on big ideas to confront the scale of our housing crisis. Credit to @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social for treating affordability with the energy it demands, but he'll need to do more than freeze rents to deliver relief to all tenants.

With only a few more days of early voting to go, we wanted to go over some common misconceptions about the charter amendments on your ballot.

Excellent @jacobinmag.bsky.social article about the charter amendments, demonstrating the progressive necessity of housing abundance. Helping tenants requires building more—not privileging a land use process that preserves the status quo.

It’s not education when it’s misinformation. The City Council is (seemingly illegally) using your tax dollars to fight proposals that would make it easier to build affordable housing.

The Municipal Art Society has come out in support of @YesOnAffHousing.bsky.social NYC props 2-4!! The preservationist group says the proposals "represent a bold effort to address the urgent housing crisis and more equitably distribute housing citywide, in line with the Fair Housing Framework."

Election Day is one week away—and climate is on the ballot! How you vote will affect NYC’s climate future for years to come. Let’s dig in.

The DSA and Staten Island Conservatives are in agreement—wow—and so are we: NYC needs universal daylighting. Let’s bring Intro 1138 to a vote and make our streets safer for everyone.

A 10-year waitlist for senior housing. 26,000 applications for 84 units. Older New Yorkers are being left with an impossible choice: live in squalor or leave the city they call home. We need to do better—and that starts with building more affordable housing.

In the 1920s, NYC built 730,000 homes. A century later, we can’t even come close—and our vacancy rate is at a historic low. The good news? We can do something about it. Vote YES on the charter amendments to speed up affordable housing, and we can finally address this crisis.

After a great first weekend of early voting, we’re diving deeper into Question 6, which will endorse moving elections to higher-turnout even years

Happy first day of Early Voting! Not only are we voting for the folks who will lead our city for the coming years, don’t forget to flip your ballot to vote YES on the charter amendments!

With early voting starting tomorrow, let’s take a closer look at Question 5, amending the charter to create a single digital city map 👇

The Trump administration’s $450 million cuts to green energy in New York will result in fewer jobs, more pollution, and a halting of progress across the state. Terrible.

This seven-street intersection in Chinatown has been an urban puzzle. Finally, the city is making moves to solve it. This proposal by the DOT will make this chaotic area safer, greener, and more walkable—let’s do it.

Cities are dropping car lanes to add protected bike lanes. They’re also gaining: ✅ Safer streets ✅ Cleaner air ✅ Better health ✅ Money saved ✅ …and more joyful places to live.

Brooklynites are saying YES in my backyard to new housing. As the shortage becomes undeniable, New Yorkers know that even high-rises can be assets to our neighborhoods. Next? Passing the @yesonaffhousing.bsky.social charter amendments to build modest homes and more affordable housing too.

We’re excited about the release of Life After Cars, which tells the story of advocacy for safer, more equitable streets. One major through line that the authors get at in this interview: opponents of change are louder than the beneficiaries of what hasn't yet come. Let's change those incentives.

Freezing rents may be a balm for many, but it will not address our severe housing shortage. Indeed, we need to bring the 26,000 rent-stabilized apartments now vacant *back into the housing stock.* @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social must be clear-eyed about the tradeoffs these policies present.

Let's dive deeper into @yesonaffhousing.bsky.social amendment 4. Question 4 creates an Appeals Board (of the mayor, borough president, and speaker) to review rejections of affordable housing. Why? Amid a historic shortage, the appeals board gives NYC one more shot to say yes to more homes 👇

We're just six days out from early voting! Time to make your voting plan 👇

@governor.ny.gov is keeping public transit improvements moving despite the Trump administration’s funding freeze. This commitment to getting the Interborough Express running is a great sign for the future of NYC—augmenting transit and creating more opportunities for dense housing.

“The most important thing is delivering.” Policy promises mean very little without the drive and innovative attitude to get things done. Seeing @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social being focused on delivery is a great sign for the future of NYC.

NYC schools are ideal sites of clean energy production, with solar panels now on 126 rooftops. But Trump’s “big beautiful bill” would stall that progress by cutting key incentives. Let's expand opportunities to meet our climate goals—not take away the few we already have.

Opposition to the @yesonaffhousing.bsky.social charter amendments is the GOP position. Take note, progressive voters.

What Sliwa is maybe alluding to is that Prop 3 will make it easier to get climate resiliency projects approved, including flood infrastructure and solar panels (but not batteries actually). graphic via @abundanceny.bsky.social:

Success stories like the new East River Park are why we fight so hard for progress. After *years* of NIMBY opposition, we now have flood protection, open space, and community-centered design. @hellgatenyc.com is right: it’s pretty fucking awesome.

Today we're taking a closer look at Question 3, the @YesOnAffHousing charter amendment. Q3 will create a fast track for the kind of modest new homes that don't get proposed today—but which we need if we're going to combat the housing crisis 👇

Being “the most pro-housing council in a generation,” would require putting aside their own interests and supporting these vital ballot measures that will make it easier to build homes. We're with @rachelfee.bsky.social: NYC’s housing crisis won’t be solved by defending the status quo.

Around the world, clean energy is beating fossil fuels. But in the U.S., Trump’s policies are dragging us backward - blocking wind and solar projects while demand for clean power grows. The public wants renewables.

Pausing an expansion on a highway where “severe traffic […] is rare” is a great first step - Now let’s shift those expansion efforts towards our bus and rail systems!

At every step, Republicans (and NIMBY Dems) have tried to prevent city voters from having our say on speeding affordable housing production. They begged the BOE to block the questions from the ballot—then they baselessly sued for the same result. Thankfully, they're failing.

We were thrilled to join a massive crowd yesterday for the @yesonaffhousing.bsky.social rally 🎉 Electeds, advocates, faith leaders, community activists, and everyday New Yorkers all came out to demand what we all know we need: MORE 👏 AFFORDABLE 👏HOUSING 👏 Let’s vote YES on Questions 2–5!

More affordable housing is already taking shapethanks to the Midtown South rezoning. This office-to-residential conversion at 29 W 35th Street will deliver 107 new units, 27 of which will be permanently affordable proof that zoning reform can bring real change. www.chelseanewsny.com/news/w-35th-...

When New Yorkers flip over their ballots this fall, they’ll find important charter amendment questions—all of which deserve a resounding YES vote ✅ Today we're focusing on Question 2, fast-tracking affordable housing approvals 👇

We’re already seeing the effects of climate change across NYC. @sandynurse.bsky.social’s “cool pavement” pilot program will not only improve livability for New Yorkers—it will lay the foundation for the climate-resilient streetscape we need to combat this crisis.

Getting all of @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social’s ideas off the ground will require collaboration with the council and state legislature—but making buses faster is an achievable and profound quality of life win for NYC that we look forward to seeing happen in a Mamdani administration.

The $350M Pier 94 redevelopment project not only brings new film studios to NYC—it fixes a major bottleneck on the Hudson River Greenway, one of the busiest greenways in the country. This is what good urban development looks like!

New York City has the slowest buses in the nation. Automated camera enforcement (ACE) is a key tool to speed them up: "Routes that use ACE have seen bus speeds increased by 5%, with some corridors experiencing a travel time jump as high as 30%"

This combination of big-picture passion *and* seriousness about actually delivering significantly informed our recommendation of Mamdani as the right choice for mayor. 👉 More in the NYC 2025 Voter guide at www.nyc2025.com

💯 When we started Abundance NY last summer, our very first programming was a monthly happy hour. We knew that folks looking for a political home needed to have fun making change. Every month we get 120+ attendees. Now our community has grown to over 4,000—an undeniable political force.

New York City is in a housing affordability crisis. With a 50-year-low 1.4% vacancy rate, we need to create more affordable housing—fast. Read more about how we got here, and about the votes we can take this November to create more affordable options for all New Yorkers 👇