Earlier this week Hyperallergic had an article about the cultural plans of two candidates for NYC mayor, Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani. From the article, it appears Lander has a more detailed plan, though polls of Democratic primary voters are more favorable to Mamdani and former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Part of Lander’s plan includes ““…cultural prescription program” that would allow doctors to “prescribe” art to promote holistic health. I have written about similar programs in Canada and Europe before. These programs generally take the form of passes to organizations and places.
Lander also wants to create more funding for smaller organizations and marginalized communities and create a deputy mayor for the arts and culture
He also wants to improve lease terms for creative spaces to address displacement; increase the membership of the Cultural Institutional Group (CIG) receiving funding from the city, which currently includes primarily major museums and organizations; and boost public school art programs.
Mamdani is similarly focused on providing better accessibility to spaces for artists and organizations:
Mamdani emphasized the importance of affordability for artists in the city and reiterated his plans to build more affordable housing. Mamdani also said he would prioritize preventing New Yorkers from being “priced out” of the arts and securing more funding for arts education in public schools.
I will confess that my initial inclination was to wonder if these were just idealized plans and if the candidates had any concept of how they would be paid for. But then I was reminded that Lander is the NYC Comptroller so he is actually intimately familiar with the city’s budget and how it is spent.
