Every mayor says he loves New York. It’s practically part of the oath of office. But there’s a difference between loving a city and being in love with one, and if you read what Ed Koch said versus what Zohran Mamdani has been writing and posting since taking office, you can hear it.

Koch loved New York the way you love a rowdy, difficult relative — fiercely, loyally, elbows out. “I love this country, and I love this city,” he said in 1993, and he meant it. But Koch’s love came wrapped in swagger. He bragged about balancing budgets. He called developers “piggy” and successors “nasty men.” His tombstone doesn’t say he adored the city — it says he “fiercely” defended it. That’s the love of a man protecting turf, not writing poetry.

Mamdani writes poetry about it. Literally. On Sept. 5, he posted these words to more than a million followers: “a love letter to our city.” No press release, no policy — just that, at 11 p.m.

His inaugural address read less like a mayoral speech and more like a diary entry. He talked about the sound of steelpan drums, the smell of sancocho, and $9 coffee on the same block — and how a Muslim kid from the city grew up eating bagels and lox every Sunday anyway. “To live in New York, to love New York, is to know that we are the stewards of something without equal,” he said. Koch defended the city. Mamdani talks about being its steward, like something you tend rather than run.

Then there’s the victory speech, where the love-letter framing really gives itself away. Most winners thank donors and consultants. Mamdani told a story about a woman he met on the Bx33 bus who confessed, “I used to love New York, but now it’s just where I live” — and built his closing argument around getting her love back.

He talked about Richard, a taxi driver he’d joined on a 15-day hunger strike outside City Hall, still driving seven days a week. And then the line that could be stitched onto a Hallmark card for the five boroughs: the city he loves would “finally love them back.”

Koch never talked like that. His version of affection was asking strangers, “How’m I doin’?” — soliciting a performance review, not professing devotion. It was transactional. Mamdani isn’t asking how he’s doing. He’s telling the city how he feels, unprompted, at midnight, on social media, the way people do about partners and not municipalities.

None of this means Mamdani is a better mayor, or that infatuation beats competence — Koch pulled a bankrupt city back from the edge, and no amount of tweeted affection pays down debt or fixes a broken subway signal.

Sentiment isn’t a governing strategy, and plenty of New Yorkers watching a socialist mayor wax lyrical about sancocho and steelpan while rents and crime numbers get argued over in every op-ed page in town will say the city needs a manager more than a suitor. That’s a fair fight, and one this administration will have to keep winning with results, not tweets.

But the emotional register is genuinely different. Koch was a booster who sold the city like a product he was proud of. Mamdani talks about New York like he’s still a little surprised it lets him love him back. One is civic pride. The other is closer to romance. New Yorkers who lived through Koch’s era will recognize the difference — and have opinions about which one the city needs right now.

Borges writes about race and poverty in the city.