This seems like an exciting opportunity to address the persistent racial and economic segregation and inequality that has plagued the system. The city will also be flush with new federal reopening funds. But it took much more organizing and protesting, and the election of a progressive legislature, to finally put that funding in the state budget this year. Parent advocates won the court battles years ago: The state was found guilty of underfunding city schools and had been under a court order to allocate billions of dollars to the city’s public schools to enable them to provide “a sound basic education” to their students, most of whom are Black or brown. After three decades of struggle and lawsuits by public school parents and community activists, the state legislature decided this year to fully and equitably fund New York City’s public schools. In this light, it seemed bold of him to consume a pricey square slice of pizza with a journalist, but Yang is too confident to worry about such things. His social media posts have reflected confusion on points ranging from the meaning of “ bodega” to the trajectory of the A train, and he’s been roasted for being a “bandwagon fan” of the New York Knicks. Pizza is a risk for any New York City mayoral candidate-when Bill de Blasio ate a slice, inexplicably, with a knife and fork, it was a tabloid scandal-but particularly for Yang, who has drawn mockery for his lack of authenticity as a New Yorker. Yang, wearing his usual dark blue blazer over a dress shirt with no tie, exuberantly assured me that the pizza here-from Corner Slice, an upscale enterprise aesthetically evocative of a vernacular New York pizza shop-is “the best.” I decided to have what he’s having, the “special,” festooned with a suspicious variety of items. Given the inhospitable weather, we decided to eat indoors (a pandemic first for me). I wanted to know how a Mayor Yang would address the concerns of the progressive movement, from racial injustice to affordable housing to the climate crisis.

The former executive of a small test-prep company, Yang may well become the next mayor of the biggest city in the United States. With his name recognition, he could easily win a race made less predictable by the city’s new ranked-choice voting system. And right now, although Eric Adams, an ex-cop and a more conventional politician, has been pulling ahead recently, Yang is polling well with every demographic, including those identifying as progressive or liberal. He has some potentially interesting ideas-a public bank, for instance-but he also loves solutions involving philanthropy and public-private partnerships. A candidate for mayor of New York City, Yang is a businessman and failed nonprofiteer with no experience governing and a hodgepodge of centrist, liberal, banal, and just plain quirky opinions.

Andrew yang nyc mayor