Zohran Mamdani’s gamble is that power can be rebuilt from the bottom stairwell up. By reviving the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants under organizer Cea Weaver, he didn’t just shuffle titles; he redrew the battlefield. Tenants who once collected pamphlets now collect case numbers, inspectors’ names, and proof that the city will stand between them and the landlord’s lawyer. The threat is no longer theoretical; it arrives with a seal and a deadline.Around that enforcement core, the LIFT and SPEED task forces sketch a different future: public land repurposed for homes, red tape cut without cutting communities out. It is a narrow path between displacement and decay, and Mamdani walks it with no safety net. Either the subway’s packed workers will still be here, paying rent they can bear, or this moment will harden into memory—a brief, bright revolt swallowed by the city it tried to save.