A lot of people argue for the ideal rather than the proposed solution, and conflate the two.
In this case, the ideal is stable, affordable rent prices. The proposed solution is rent control.
Rent control, from a policy standpoint, does not create affordable rent prices by itself. It needs to be paired with a lot of other policies - supply control, great city planning, landlord incentive adjustments via taxes, fines / punishments, enforcement of it, etc.
So, people espousing rent control as the solution are inaccurate semantically. Rent control is part of the solution, but what's more important is how rent control is paired with other policies.
Rent control is not an independent solution, but (as most policies are) its complementary and needs to fit with the rest of the policy package. For instance, if you had a policy to force housing to double every year (and somehow it actually happened), rent control is not needed because supply would reduce pricing naturally. And in a supply blocked economy, the issue is that demand is high - rent control would do nothing to reduce demand.
If you're going to create a policy that creates stable, affordable rent prices, you'll need to look holistically at the each sub-part of the issue. Saying that we need stable, affordable rent prices is natural - it's a human need, a moralistic ideal, and also great for many people. But it doesn't add much to the conversation, and it makes it difficult to have dialogue with actual proposed solutions over the loud, muddled public debate.
Rent control is not a solution, it is a part of the problem. To have affordable rent prices there has to be abdundance of rental apartments available, and if rents are artificially capped then those apartments will never be built in the first place, because it isn't profitable to build them, especially when riddiculous zoning requirements are also present.
I mostly agree with you, except that rent control can reduce demand by disincentivizing people from moving to your city. I suspect this is one of the reasons SF's rent control is popular.
But then, yeah, the real goal is "keep housing prices low, and keep newcomers out," not "rent control."
"Rent control, no other changes" doesn't just disincentivize people from moving to your city, it disincentivizes movement altogether.
I see rent control as a fix for a symptom. Answering the question about the ideal living condition for a city and how to grow successful, long lasting sustainable, healthy cities is the real issue. Rent control is a bandage, and the collection of rent adjustment policies is not as elegant as just a strong set of policies to promote healthy cities.
Admittedly this is really, really idealistic, it ignores the fact that we have a lot of cities that need help right now, and it assumes that there is a standardized way to build great cities.
Comments
A lot of people argue for the ideal rather than the proposed solution, and conflate the two.
In this case, the ideal is stable, affordable rent prices. The proposed solution is rent control.
Rent control, from a policy standpoint, does not create affordable rent prices by itself. It needs to be paired with a lot of other policies - supply control, great city planning, landlord incentive adjustments via taxes, fines / punishments, enforcement of it, etc.
So, people espousing rent control as the solution are inaccurate semantically. Rent control is part of the solution, but what's more important is how rent control is paired with other policies.
Rent control is not an independent solution, but (as most policies are) its complementary and needs to fit with the rest of the policy package. For instance, if you had a policy to force housing to double every year (and somehow it actually happened), rent control is not needed because supply would reduce pricing naturally. And in a supply blocked economy, the issue is that demand is high - rent control would do nothing to reduce demand.
If you're going to create a policy that creates stable, affordable rent prices, you'll need to look holistically at the each sub-part of the issue. Saying that we need stable, affordable rent prices is natural - it's a human need, a moralistic ideal, and also great for many people. But it doesn't add much to the conversation, and it makes it difficult to have dialogue with actual proposed solutions over the loud, muddled public debate.
Rent control is not a solution, it is a part of the problem. To have affordable rent prices there has to be abdundance of rental apartments available, and if rents are artificially capped then those apartments will never be built in the first place, because it isn't profitable to build them, especially when riddiculous zoning requirements are also present.
I mostly agree with you, except that rent control can reduce demand by disincentivizing people from moving to your city. I suspect this is one of the reasons SF's rent control is popular.
But then, yeah, the real goal is "keep housing prices low, and keep newcomers out," not "rent control."
"Rent control, no other changes" doesn't just disincentivize people from moving to your city, it disincentivizes movement altogether.
I see rent control as a fix for a symptom. Answering the question about the ideal living condition for a city and how to grow successful, long lasting sustainable, healthy cities is the real issue. Rent control is a bandage, and the collection of rent adjustment policies is not as elegant as just a strong set of policies to promote healthy cities.
Admittedly this is really, really idealistic, it ignores the fact that we have a lot of cities that need help right now, and it assumes that there is a standardized way to build great cities.
What's the proposed mechanism that would disincentivize people from moving somewhere where rents are more affordable?