Power in New York has always understood timing. It knows when to lean in, when to hold, and when to quietly prepare an exit contingency long before headlines acknowledge change. That instinct is sharpening again as the city approaches November and contemplates the possibility of electing Zohran Mamdani, a candidate whose political vision is seen by many high-net-worth residents as ideological rather than economic, activist rather than growth-oriented.
To the uninitiated, this election reads as a routine progressive surge. To the individuals who steward generational wealth, lead capital markets, and sit on boards that shape the cultural and philanthropic infrastructure of the city, it reads as something else entirely: a signal that New York may tip toward a model where capital is framed as an adversary instead of an engine.
In that world, the most mobile people in New York do not argue. They reallocate.
Not all at once, not in public, and not in panic. They plan. They explore residency pathways. They test liquidity. They consider where ambition is incentivized rather than managed. Increasingly, in conversations happening far from campaign rallies — in Fifth Avenue drawing rooms, over quiet lunches in NoHo, in WhatsApps among founders and financiers — one city keeps surfacing as the future-proof alternative: Dubai.
Enter Lukas Kerrebijn, the Dutch founder of RD Dubai, who has become the discreet adviser for New Yorkers preparing optionality should the city’s political winds shift. Kerrebijn does not traffic in rhetoric or alarmism. His strength lies in infrastructure and results. He enables those interested to secure Dubai real estate and residency before urgency forces improvisation.
His model is precise. RD Dubai acquires entire floors in the city’s most architecturally and investment-driven developments, negotiating entry terms unavailable to individual buyers, and completing the supporting work — banking, company structuring, visa pathways, tax coordination — that transforms geopolitical anxiety into streamlined mobility.
Dubai’s allure to this tier is not rooted in novelty. It is rooted in policy coherence, population growth, and a government that views ambitious residents as partners in national vision. For New Yorkers accustomed to the city as the global center of excellence, the calculation is not emotional; it is structural. If New York reorients toward redistributive purity and ideological signaling, capital — as it has for centuries — will travel where it feels generative.
Kerrebijn is not predicting an exodus, nor encouraging one. He is operating in the quiet space where stewardship and prudence meet. The place where those responsible for dynastic outcomes do not wait to see history unfold before preparing their side doors and second addresses.
Optionality is not crisis thinking. In the language of New York’s elite, it is sophistication. If the city remains aligned with enterprise, the penthouses stay full and the energy endures. If it does not, the next chapter will be written on waterfront terraces above the Gulf, by people who planned early enough to move smoothly and on their own terms.
For the circles already calling Kerrebijn, one truth holds: New York will always be home, but home is strongest when backed by leverage, foresight, and a second key to a second skyline.
