I supported those claims with an analogy to free trade and the political backlash caused by structural dislocation. Here's another parallel--price gouging. Rent control laws are a form of anti-price gouging measure. Show me a jurisdiction where the electorate would vote down an anti-price gouging law (or one that doesn't already have one, for that matter).
In the most popular cities, where housing insecurity sentiments are acute, rent control has the same logic and appeal to voters as anti-price gouging. And just like with anti-price gouging laws, arguments that such measures negatively moderate price signaling (which might induce greater supply) are insufficient to persuade voters to oppose them. (The more persuasive argument concerns opposing government and advocating for property rights, but in cities with large renting populations that argument is a difficult sell, especially if single-family homes are excluded, which is very often the case.)
Housing security is a fundamental, high priority need (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs). When it's threatened, promises of future supply and price improvements are simply insufficient to resolve the felt problem. There's a time asymmetry dilemma to such structural problems, and there's no easy way to solve it. I argue that some rent control laws (at least in certain geographic areas) are as inevitable as some tariffs, at least in the short term, so long as there's a strong democratic process. Remove or weaken the democratic process and you can more easily resolve that particular dilemma (while creating other ones). I might cite as a supplemental source Platos' The Republic.
Economists systematically underestimate the value of security (defense, shelter, food, etc, and pricing stability thereof). Perhaps because it's difficult to accurately measure. We can "price" the value of a human life in the aggregate or in special situations, and we do for various purposes, like various forms of insurance, or civil restitution. But good luck convincing people to make criminal penalties against murder contingent on inability to pay restitution. (That is, legal if you can afford it.) Even with a trillion dollar premium (above and beyond existing restitution formulas--earnings, pain & suffering, etc), few people would vote for that, which means that in some sense the value is infinite.
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I supported those claims with an analogy to free trade and the political backlash caused by structural dislocation. Here's another parallel--price gouging. Rent control laws are a form of anti-price gouging measure. Show me a jurisdiction where the electorate would vote down an anti-price gouging law (or one that doesn't already have one, for that matter).
In the most popular cities, where housing insecurity sentiments are acute, rent control has the same logic and appeal to voters as anti-price gouging. And just like with anti-price gouging laws, arguments that such measures negatively moderate price signaling (which might induce greater supply) are insufficient to persuade voters to oppose them. (The more persuasive argument concerns opposing government and advocating for property rights, but in cities with large renting populations that argument is a difficult sell, especially if single-family homes are excluded, which is very often the case.)
Housing security is a fundamental, high priority need (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs). When it's threatened, promises of future supply and price improvements are simply insufficient to resolve the felt problem. There's a time asymmetry dilemma to such structural problems, and there's no easy way to solve it. I argue that some rent control laws (at least in certain geographic areas) are as inevitable as some tariffs, at least in the short term, so long as there's a strong democratic process. Remove or weaken the democratic process and you can more easily resolve that particular dilemma (while creating other ones). I might cite as a supplemental source Platos' The Republic.
Economists systematically underestimate the value of security (defense, shelter, food, etc, and pricing stability thereof). Perhaps because it's difficult to accurately measure. We can "price" the value of a human life in the aggregate or in special situations, and we do for various purposes, like various forms of insurance, or civil restitution. But good luck convincing people to make criminal penalties against murder contingent on inability to pay restitution. (That is, legal if you can afford it.) Even with a trillion dollar premium (above and beyond existing restitution formulas--earnings, pain & suffering, etc), few people would vote for that, which means that in some sense the value is infinite.