From Khan to Mamdani: The Leadership of Major Cities Amid the Decline of the State

Today, major cities are undergoing a phase of redefining their political, economic, and cultural roles. They are no longer merely urban spaces for residence and work but have become centers of decision-making and influence on global issues such as climate change, migration, equality, and sustainable development. As the nation-state’s capacity to monopolize representative authority shrinks, the city rises as an independent actor in world politics.

Within this context, the experiences of Sadiq Khan in London and Zohran Mamdani in New York stand out as examples of a “new urban left” – one that combines administrative pragmatism with social ambition, reshaping the concepts of justice and citizenship through a multicultural urban lens. Both leaders use their positions not merely to manage municipal services but to redefine the very meaning of politics in an era marked by the decline of grand ideologies and the rise of politics centered on livelihood and dignity.

Khan – the son of working-class Pakistani immigrants – represents a vivid embodiment of the post-British Empire generation: one that employs the very instruments of the state to correct the distortions of imperial history. His journey from London’s impoverished suburbs to Parliament and eventually to the mayoralty of the capital is not just a personal success story but a symbolic redistribution of power within British society itself. Khan personifies the cosmopolitan citizen[1] who reconciles national belonging with migrant roots – a counter-narrative to right-wing and populist discourses that seek to monopolize British identity.

Mamdani, by contrast, belongs to the generation of the “Globalized Diaspora” –[2] born amid postcolonial realities and patterns of forced mobility – embodying a complex cultural synthesis that bridges Africa, Asia, and America. This hybrid identity grants his discourse a distinctly global character that transcends rigid forms of belonging. For Mamdani, the city represents a space of planetary citizenship, not merely an administrative unit. His rhetoric around “the right to the city” stems from the conviction that social justice begins in neighborhoods rather than parliaments, and that politics can emerge from the local sphere to reshape national consciousness as a whole.

Khan, for his part, stands within the tradition of Britain’s Labour Party and its social-democratic heritage, balancing ideals of justice with pragmatic economic considerations. Despite his leftist background, his administrative style tends toward pragmatism, favoring compromise solutions that preserve social stability while avoiding direct confrontation with the central government or capital interests.

In contrast, Mamdani represents the bold, progressive face of democratic socialism within the U.S. Democratic Party. He does not hesitate to offer open critiques of the class hierarchies within his own party and advocates radical urban policies such as rent freezes and funding for public housing from city budgets. This contrast highlights the cultural divergence of the left across the Atlantic: a British institutional left seeking gradual reform versus a young American left aspiring to reengineer the social contract itself.

Yet both, despite their ideological differences, revive a shared principle – that local politics is not merely about service delivery, but about reproducing social and economic legitimacy within the city.

Key Fields and Policy Areas

1. Housing and Cost of Living: The housing crisis has become a mirror reflecting the depth of social inequality in global cities. In London, Khan has linked housing to environmental justice, arguing that pollution and real-estate speculation are two sides of the same urban imbalance. He launched affordable housing programs aimed at creating a “new middle class” within the city rather than pushing it toward the periphery.
Mamdani, meanwhile, views housing as a constitutional right. He goes further by advocating for city-funded institutions to own and manage buildings. His vision seeks to transform housing from a market commodity into a public service-placing him in direct confrontation with real estate capital.

2. Transport and Environment: Khan’s environmental vision took shape through the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) project, widely regarded as a global model for urban climate policy. He linked clean transportation to social justice by ensuring that mobility costs are lower for poorer groups. Mamdani, on the other hand, promotes free public transport as a means of democratizing the city: every resident, regardless of income, should have the freedom to move across the urban space. This framing situates environmental justice within the broader context of economic justice, transforming public transport from a service into a fundamental social right.

3. Identity and Representation: Khan approaches diversity as both a productive and cultural value, asserting that London’s strength lies in its pluralism. Mamdani uses his identity as the child of migration to redefine American patriotism through inclusion rather than exclusion, demonstrating that social justice is inseparable from racial justice.

Both mayors converge on four main axes: A shared migrant background. A focus on every day, life as the core of politics. The use of urban platforms to defend justice. And, viewing politics as an experimental field for social innovation.

However, the crucial difference lies in the political systems they operate within: Khan works in a centralized environment where his authority is constrained by British government decisions, whereas Mamdani enjoys greater maneuvering space within the U.S. federal system. Khan represents an administrative left that balances ambition with feasibility, while Mamdani symbolizes a transformative left seeking to rewrite the rules of the game itself.

Cities as Channels of Foreign Policy

In recent years, cities have emerged as active units in global politics, capable of developing a form of “urban diplomacy” that transcends the nation-state. Mamdani’s election as a New York City representative has allowed him direct access to transnational networks such as C40 and ICLEI,[3] where mayors from around the world coordinate climate and social policies. These networks go beyond the mere exchange of expertise; they embody a new normative authority that produces models later adopted by states and international institutions.

Khan’s experience in London illustrates this dynamic: the ULEZ project evolved into a model replicated by European and Asian cities, transforming London into a hub for exporting environmental policy. In this way, the city becomes an informal diplomatic actor-negotiating not through military or state channels, but through environmental and social initiatives.

The interaction between London and New York demonstrates a new mechanism of political knowledge circulation known as “horizontal learning.” When a major city experiments with a successful tool-such as road pricing or subsidized public transport-the model quickly diffuses to other cities through urban networks. Within this context, urban progressivism functions as a global laboratory of governance, where small local decisions about housing or the environment generate cumulative effects that transcend borders, pressuring national governments to adopt fairer policies.

In another sense, the election of two Muslim mayors in Western capitals represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of soft power. Instead of exporting values through traditional cultural diplomacy, the city itself becomes a symbolic platform that embodies universal ideals of tolerance, dignity, and global citizenship.

Analyses by The Guardian and Manchesterhive suggest that this form of urban leadership produces “bottom-up soft power”-a legitimacy rooted in lived experience rather than official rhetoric. Though Khan and Mamdani do not issue foreign policy decisions, their local policies resonate internationally, interpreted by media and global forums as implicit messages about the kind of cities-and the kind of world-they envision.

Khan’s and Mamdani’s experiments make everyday urban issues-housing, transport, wages-central to global political discourse. When New York successfully promotes affordable transport, international development organizations adopt it as an exportable tool. In this way, a new transnational line of social policy-making emerges, positioning livelihood justice as a key measure of political legitimacy and merging the local with the global within a unified framework.

Both experiences reveal that urban progressivism is not merely an administrative trend but a new intellectual paradigm redefining politics itself:

1. The City as a Policy Producer: Cities generate practical solutions that circulate globally as applied knowledge.

2. Urban Soft Power: Legitimacy derives from everyday performance rather than national symbolism.

3. Urban Networks as Alternatives to International Organizations: These networks produce new standards for climate and social justice.

4. Livelihood Dignity as a Unifying Framework: They reconnect citizens to their cities on the basis of rights, not just belonging.

In conclusion, both Khan and Mamdani embody the features of a new global left emerging from the urban sphere rather than party headquarters. The challenges they face-from housing to migration-are not merely local but inherently global. While Khan balances ideals and realism through gradual reform, Mamdani seeks to engineer a bolder, alternative urban model. What unites them is the conviction that politics begins in the street, and that true justice is measured by people’s ability to live with dignity in their cities. Together, their trajectories offer a blueprint for renewing the global left through the politics of everyday life, showing that the future of world politics will not be shaped in palaces of power, but in the great municipalities that manage daily living and construct a new legitimacy for the coming world.

[1] A term that refers to an individual who perceives themselves as part of a global human community that transcends national borders, balancing local belonging with global openness. The concept is linked to the philosophy of cosmopolitanism, which advocates human solidarity and global citizenship, with major cities serving as the natural spaces where this form of identity and belonging is most vividly expressed.

[2] It refers to the second or third generation of immigrants who grew up in multicultural environments shaped by globalization, carrying hybrid identities that transcend singular national belonging. This generation is characterized by its ability to navigate multiple languages, cultures, and social systems, as well as by its critical stance toward traditional boundaries of identity and homeland—making it more open to concepts of global citizenship and transnational justice.

[3] Two global networks of cities that aim to cooperate on climate and sustainable development issues.