Whom cities are for

Affordability is the new political buzzword. What happens to a place, our guest essayist asks, when it squeezes out its own middle?

In an unequal America, is affordability a “fake word by Democrats,” as Donald Trump puts it, or is it the key to winning the future, the cornerstone of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s appeal and approach to reanimating everything from housing policy to the arts?

Nowhere is inequality — and the growing pressure of economic precarity on middle-class A…