[1123581321]

Rent control is well studied. Several bad things happen in rent controlled areas. Non-controlled rents rise. Gentrification accelerates outside of the protected buildings. People live somewhere they don’t necessarily want to be. Units are converted into lower density housing to drive up price. Commutes lengthen. If the city becomes less of a draw in the future, the controls don’t allow graceful lowering of prices.

In contrast to most economic issues, rent control has robust bipartisan opposition.

[sudosysgen]

Rent control needs to be implemented well to work. Badly implemented rant control doesn't work. Everything you're describing comes from rent control not being universal, to prices being allowed to increase between tenants, and to zoning laws allowing the construction of low density housing in high density areas instead of only allowing low and medium density.

You can encourage graceful lowering of prices by putting in inoccupancy taxes.

Rent control is easy to fuck up, and almost every place in the US that implements it half asses it by either making it only apply to part of the city, allowing unlimited rent increases between tenants, disallow reasonable rent increases for improvements, and so on. Rent control has to be implemented well to work. There are plenty of examples of cities where it works wonderfully, and plenty of places where there is multipartisan consensus in favour of them.

[1123581321]

Occupancy taxes and codified reasonable increases can’t create a dynamic rent market. Even if an entire city were to be put under a construction freeze, which would be incredibly unhealthy, problems would spill into suburbs. The rest is just re-assertions and a wish for perfect city planning.

[sudosysgen]

The purpose of inoccupancy taxes and reasonable increases is to remove any disincentive to move out from your rent controlled appartment. So as long as there is not massive influx into the city outpacing constriction, there will be a dynamic rent market.

I don't understand what you're getting at with construction freezes and so on. The basic principle is that badly implemented rent control in badly palnned cities can exacerbate problems, while well designed rent control in well planned cities can solve problems. It's not a magic bullet but its not a curse either.

[1123581321]

Construction freeze probably wasn’t the best term. You were saying that workarounds to increase revenue wouldn’t be permitted and those would have to be comprehensively restrictive.

This is a big topic; I guess I’d say to just read more about how it’s gone historically and why “just do it better” isn’t viable. Appreciate the zeal.

[sudosysgen]

There are no needs for workarounds to prevent an increase in revenue. There are no restrictions on improvements or additional construction as long as the rent increases are justified by the cost incurred. Revenue can be increased as long profit stays reasonable.

I've read a lot on how it's gone historically, and you'll even find economics literature over natural experiments showing positive outcomes for rent control.

I gave you a set of characteristics of well implemented rent control laws. If you could show me an example of where those failed I'd appreciate it, because I can give you examples of where those succeeded and are still working.