Selling the Unscripted City

For the past three years, while city governments and corporate landlords have been arguing about whether the post-pandemic city is “back,” creators with no affiliation to these institutions have been building the most effective case for urban life that any city has ever produced. And they’re doing it on subway cars and sidewalks with a phone camera and no budget.

I discovered Kareem Rahma through Zohran Mamdani, back when Mamdani was still my assemblyman in Astoria. Kareem’s Subway Takes episode, where Mamdani said Eric Adams was a terrible mayor, was the kind of moment the algorithm loves. I clicked and moved on. 

But then YouTube pulled me into the non-celebrity episodes. I watched a stranger on the F train grab the MetroCard mic and defend, with absolute conviction, the position that pigeons are just rats with better PR. Another stranger starts yelling back, and Kareem holds the space for this beautiful, unhinged democratic argument that could on