| to lower the price of housing in the interests of the general public.
Its purpose is to prevent displacement, especially of the poor and elderly for whom displacement is a major negative. For that purpose, it has done very well as a policy.
> For that purpose, it has done very well as a policy.
Well...for those who are not actually displaced, yes. But the ones that are displaced are often essentially banished by a dysfunctional housing market.
Rent control is not targeted towards the poor and elderly, and there are many others who benefit in the short-term (but then, again, are unable to move because the market rate has skyrocketed, though of course not just because of rent control).
| But the ones that are displaced are often essentially banished
Without it they would have been displaced even earlier. Speculative bubbles exist outside of rent control, especially in the US where rent control is never all that strong or comprehensive.
> Without it they would have been displaced even earlier
This is mostly hypothetical. In functioning housing markets that don't manipulate prices or limit new construction through policy, speculative bubbles make little sense -- why would housing become more expensive if it's easy to build lots of it?
The argument that removing just rent control would make folks worse off -- that I'm sympathetic to, of course. Obviously you also need to build. But rent control as practiced in most of the Bay Area causes lots of grief despite only helping a relative few of the desired beneficiaries.
That is, unless you define beneficiaries much more widely than you do -- to basically make it a benefit to seniority. Rent control, like Prop 13 and construction restrictions, work to allocate scarce resources based on seniority rather than wealth or ability/willingness to pay. The argument that it allocates based on need (i.e., poverty, inability to move house) is weak; that's a mild side effect, and policies that just straight up subsidize housing (i.e., vouchers, etc.) for those in need could be much better targeted, and could be funded in a way that doesn't also incentivize poor maintenance, harassment, and eviction.
Is allocating based on seniority better than wealth? For current residents--at least, until they're Ellis'd--sure. For their kids, who lack seniority? Almost never. Everyone needs a place to live. Right now, more people want to live here than we're allowing to (through construction limitations). So, sure, we could argue about how to allocate -- or we could just end the damn scarcity!
I don't know how useful an SFBA perspective is, given that area is dealing with factors that very, very few other places in America are: Namely, an historic single industry boom and a lack of expansion area. The only real comparable place in America is Manhattan.
Yeah, you're right that there are a number of SFBA-specific factors that don't apply elsewhere. But people aren't really making the rent control argument about Peoria, IL.
Any place that caps both rents and housing supply through policy amid increasing demand (like Berlin, the titular locale), is going to have a ton of politics around rent control, density caps, etc., because they are choosing to allocate scarce resources by policy instead of market -- and the way to affect policy is politics.
| people aren't really making the rent control argument about Peoria, IL.
We are more than you think. Rising rents due to speculation or just plain landlord greed have become an issue country-wide. Even in places like Peoria. Especially in relation to stagnant wages.
I advocate a combination of strong rent control, aggressively subsidized housing and consistent growth (especially vertically) where possible.
> Rising rents due to speculation or just plain landlord greed
Well, you'd need both, not just one: landlord greed has a cap, average rents can't be much more than the cost of buying, though there will always be some folks who don't qualify for a mortgage for whatever reason. The only reason landlords can be greedy is the leverage they have because supply is constrained -- otherwise, their greed would be thwarted by developers' greed!
Speculation and landlord greed only really affect prices in a supply-constrained environment. In markets where housing is a commodity, and can actually be produced, the cost of housing tends towards the cost of land acquisition & construction. Not always smoothly, of course...if demand jumps very suddenly, the construction market needs time to adjust, etc.
Yes, on the one hand you could bet on the power of a bunch of individuals the system serves well-enough (after all, they're still here!) to apply political pressure to some set of local governments (though, note that rent control is starting to be regulated at the state level) to change policy to help the less-well-off in their neighborhoods.
On the other hand, you could bet on "rational activity" from landlords and developers—aka greedy self-interest.
So, sure, you might get a conscientious grassroots group to apply political pressure for rent control when it's not in their own self-interest. But you can 100% count on developers and landlords to be greedy, and I'd much rather channel that group into the outcome I want while I wait and hope for the former.
Nope. Look who overwhelmingly applies pressure to local governments everywhere -- it's not the marginalized and poor! This is not an SFBA phenomenon, it's almost a natural law.
Poor and working people have mobilized plenty of times before. That's been constant throughout modern history and only in the past few decades have we had an ahistorical low period of organizing activity. I expect that lull to end in the coming years. In many ways it already has.
I'm not sure how it's a very SFBA thing to point out that the people who have a voice in local politics are the people who haven't been displaced?
> Poor and working people have mobilized plenty of times before
This would require them working in their own rational self-interest too, though -- which (a) there isn't much evidence for, and (b) kinda negates your earlier argument about assuming rational actors.
Displacement far enough that they are outside of the local political jurisdiction is specific to there. In places like Peoria, it's just further economic immiseration within Peoria. Most of America is not being gentrified, rents are just rising. There's a difference.
| (a) there isn't much evidence for
There is plenty of evidence for that. You might just have a recency bias.
| negates your earlier argument about assuming rational actors
I don't put people mobilizing into the ideological framework of "the market". I don't put much faith into the ideological framework of markets generally. I find it only slightly more useful of a tool of understanding social forces than, say, astrology.
Importantly, I'm not talking about what will happen by virtue of some outside force or guarantee of history. I'm talking about we need to make happen by force of will.
> Most of America is not being gentrified, rents are just rising.
Peoria has a 50%+ homeownership rate. Most of the people voting locally are not facing rising rents, let alone rents at all.
> There is plenty of evidence for that. You might just have a recency bias.
> I don't put people mobilizing into the ideological framework of "the market".
Ah, I see, you don’t actually care about whether people act in their own self-interest, you just don’t like capital-E Economics and are using this as an excuse to throw out all of our understanding that people respond to incentives.
“The market” is not the only ideological framework that assumes rational actors. Do you have an alternate model of non-rational humans that you are assuming when you’re talking about making things happen by “people mobilizing”? Are they somehow not considering their own self-interest?
> Importantly, I'm not talking about what will happen by virtue of some outside force or guarantee of history
Of course. But those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
Its purpose is to prevent displacement, especially of the poor and elderly for whom displacement is a major negative. For that purpose, it has done very well as a policy.