In his inaugural address Thursday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised that his administration “will strive each day to ensure that no New Yorker is priced out of any  . . . basic necessities.”

How he’ll actually pull that off remains a mystery.

Last week, a journalist with New York magazine asked Mamdani to give an example of a city that had successfully lowered its cost of living — and got crickets in response.

(“None sprang to mind,” as the reporter tactfully phrased it.)

It’s striking that a candidate who ran almost entirely on affordability can’t offer a single model to emulate.

But let’s give our new mayor the benefit of the doubt: Greater housing affordability is within reach — if he follows the right examples.

Lowering rents happens via two fundamental paths.

A city can reduce demand by becoming a less attractive place to live, or it can increase housing supply by making new construction financially viable.

The first approach is the policy equivalent of cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face.

It happened before, when decades of fiscal irresponsibility led to New York City’s effective bankruptcy in 1975 and painful cuts to services, including the NYPD.

Rents were within reach because few people wanted to live in a city in such........

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