Can an American please help me comprehend how much power a mayor has? I am supposing a NYC mayor would be more influential than that of a less important city. But I still don't understand how that would make an appointment like this significant.

NYC's city budget is larger than every state apart from California, Texas, NY. At $115B, it equals Florida. By numbers alone, he's very influential.

Now NYC is a over-regulated mess that faces gridlock from both unions and the state representatives. In practice, it makes the NYC mayor a cog-in-the-machine. The real task for a NYC mayor is consensus building first, and allocation of funds second.

It varies by city. In some cities, mayor is barely more than a figurehead.

But regardless of power, what the NYC mayor does is widely reported and it's often a political stepping stone (if not always successful) to something greater.

Mamdani in particular is a celebrity right now, and with the reputation of the Democratic party in shambles, many eyes are on him.

Obviously NYC is very big and very wealthy. But the powers of a Mayor depend on the city.

I'm not a New Yorker, but here's how I understand it: NYC mayor appoints a bunch of people who run various bureaucratic legs of the city government. The guys who manage taxes, zoning, and whatnot. But the Mayor has to get those people approved by the city council. The mayor can also veto policies written by the city council, but he can be overruled with a two-thirds vote by the council. The council writes the budget, and the Mayor can only approve it or veto it.

This all sounds pretty normal, but it actually varies a lot depending on the city. In Chicago, for example, the Mayor writes the budget, instead of the council. But, the Aldermen (a Chicago city council member is called an Alderman btw) have a lot more power downstream of the budget, since they control stuff like zoning within their respective wards. The Aldermen also redraw their own political boundaries every 10 years, with no input from the Mayor whatsoever. I guess I'd say Chicago's mayor has less "first-order" power but more "second-order" power compared to NYC's mayor. Chicago is weird.

What should you make of this? I'm not sure. Maybe Mayors in Europe or Asia have way more power than Mamdani does, I don't know. I reckon that NYC mayor has more power than most American mayors, even when you ignore the differences in scale.

This is state by state, city by city. In some places, a mayor has broad powers over agencies, taxes, etc. That isn't quite the case in NYC. It's up to the state to delegate these powers, just as the federal government delegates powers to the states.

NYC is explicitly restricted (relative to other cities in NY) by the state in terms of what it can do. It can't independently pass its own tax laws (in many cases, at least), which other cities can, for example. Multiple agencies that would often be municipal are handled by the state or require state approval/ explicit delegation.

The city also gets exceptions for more power, including taxation powers. It's all case by case.

The NYC mayor's powers are complex for this reason. On the one hand, no one cares much about other mayors, so you have a ton of political power. On the other hand, you're not exactly empowered to do a lot without asking someone else to sign off.

NYC is a large city, consisting of 5 boroughs (divisions); each of which is larger in population than many US states. Its also the financial capital of the world. So just going by population alone, the NYC City Government represents more people than several state Governments. The economy of the city is also very high tech, high income etc. Although the Mayor does not have the same powers as Governor (e.g. they can't pass tax laws), he still has a lot of impact.

He has control over city agencies, budgets, personnel. Has little or no power as it relates to laws or infrastructure (like the MTA)--that's all state level.

It's only interesting because 8 million people live there, and many more pass through the city

This population size is greater than most countries, and the density and speed of commerce there is fairly unique, so it's a constant coordination problem and experiment on a large scale that people look to.

Think of NYC more as one of the Free Cities in the old world.

They aren't a top level government by any means but they're mostly left alone to have nearly unilateral control of their jurisdiction. New York City has some unique challenges with key infrastructure (like all of the trains) being controlled by New York State and the Federal Government.

NYC is a special case, because it’s at or near the center of the universe: the US financial hub, the center of theater, dominant in all entertainment media, the UN headquarters, the most important historical entry point for all immigrant groups, the most important city for book publishing, advertising, etc. It’s one of the five most important, powerful cities in the world. It has its own foreign policy and diplomatic relationships. Its mayors have frequently, and for many decades, been interviewed for their opinions on world affairs that would seem, at first glance, to have nothing to do with city government.