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A 2009 review of 140 economics studies on rent control in the Economics Journal Watch found that economists overwhelmingly agreed that “A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
See
Rent Control Bomb Set Off in New York City by De Blasio Rent Guidelines Board: Neutron bombs could not have emptied and destroyed the Bronx more effectively than did rent control.
"Back in the late 1970s, I was couch-surfing with a doctor friend who
had an apartment in the North Bronx. I rode the subway every day past
hundreds of abandoned apartment buildings to my job in mid-town
Manhattan. The city government had installed and painted thousands of fake windows
in the tenements so that we commuters evidently wouldn't be too
depressed by viewing the devastation. Neutron bombs could not have
emptied and destroyed the Bronx more effectively than did rent control.
Now the economic loons who inhabit New York City's Rent Guidelines
Board voted 7 to 2 to freeze one-year rents on the more than one million
apartments it regulates. From the New York Times:
It also was the first decision on rent levels by a nine-member board appointed in its entirety by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The board, one of the few tools the mayor has to directly influence
the cost of housing in the city, also voted to increase rents on
two-year leases by 2 percent, a historic low.
The mayor refrained from publicly calling for a rent freeze as he had
done last year. But his housing plan aims at building new affordable
housing while staving off the loss of existing affordable units — either
through rent increases or the removal of stabilized apartments from
regulation.
Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, praised the decision: “We know tenants
have been forced to make painful choices that pitted ever-rising rent
against necessities like groceries, child care and medical bills.
Today’s decision means relief.”
The crowd at the Great Hall at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
in Manhattan erupted in loud cheers and chanting. Many tenants and
their advocates were thrilled, even though they had earlier said they
hoped for rent reductions. ...
Joseph Strasburg, the president of the Rent Stabilization Association,
which represents 25,000 landlords, called the rent freeze an
“unconscionable, politically driven decision to carry out de Blasio’s
campaign promise of two years ago.”
“A rent freeze on the surface may sound pro-tenant,” he said, “but
the reality is landlords will now have to forgo repairing, maintaining
and preserving their apartments, which will trigger the deterioration of
quality, affordable housing de Blasio pretends to care about.”
The operative word is "pretends."
A 2009 review of 140 economics studies on rent control in the Economics Journal Watch found that economists overwhelmingly agreed that “A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
From the abstract:
I find that the preponderance of the literature points toward the
conclusion that rent control introduces inefficiencies in housing
markets. Moreover, the literature on the whole does not sustain any
plausible redemption in terms of redistribution. The literature on the
whole may be fairly said to show that rent control is bad, yet as of
2001, about 140 jurisdictions persist in some form of the intervention.
Rent control: A slow, but incredibly effective way to dismantle an entire city brick by brick."
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