> Rather: these problems are not solved because there are not enough geniuses who are capable of convincing the masses to send the responsible politicians to hell.
People support policies that make housing much less affordable (e.g. rent controls) and oppose policies that would make housing more affordable (e.g. zoning reforms). Saying that it's evil politicians that cause this crisis is dishonest - it's what people want.
People by and large don’t understand the second and third order effects of their policy preferences. It’s not that they don’t want those things, it’s that the world is more complicated than their mental model insists it is. Politicians could try harder to fix the fundamental problems but they don’t because the long-term solutions don’t manifest until after the next N (very expensive) election cycles.
Rent controls work if you go radical enough and enforce a max profit margin for the whole city, with rent limited to something like 30% over maintenance + debt repayment costs.
The amount of housing in the city won't grow but it will free up a big part of peoples income that would otherwise go to landlords. That helps the local economy with more consumer spending, and makes it easier to save up or apply for a loan so you can start a business.
You get a better economy and more money in the average persons wallet without raising taxes. The only ones who lose are commercial landlords, and they will stay profitable by design so it's easy to shut down any complaints. And you get better quality apartments as a side effect because the only way to get more money out of existing properties is to spend more on fixing them.
That policy would 1) fuck over younger generation, 2) result in total sclerosis and death of city. Prices are high because there's not enough housing, that's it. Rent control won't increase number of units so it wont solve real cause of the problem.
> The only ones who lose are commercial landlords, and they will stay profitable by design so it's easy to shut down any complaints.
No, also people who would like to move into city would lose, because that would become literally impossible. You'd have like 15 years waiting lists for housing.
> And you get better quality apartments as a side effect because the only way to get more money out of existing properties is to spend more on fixing them.
Why would anyone fix apartment that's under rent control? If you mean system like in Berlin, then I've got bad news - people there are actually frequently not allowed to renovate even THEIR OWN apartments.
The politicians are those who created the respecting laws.
"Convincing the masses to send these politicians to hell" is thus nearly isomorphic to making the masses hate politicians who create such laws, which at least very likely implies that by convincing the masses to send these politicians to hell, a different mindset emerges in the masses.
> The politicians are those who created the respecting laws.
Yes and general population LOVES these laws, even though they are harmful to them. But anyway - you've got your causality reversed - it's voting masses that incentivize rent controls and other shitty politics. Remember that to implement your policies you've got to actually win elections. And since people generally don't understand n-order effects for n>=2, it's really easy to win elections with populist policies.
> Yes and general population LOVES these laws, even though they are harmful to them.
I can only say that in Germany, where I live, in my gut feeling the situation is very different: politicians imposing various laws "for the common good" and many parts of the populations hate these laws because this implies even more red tape.
There is no evidence that reducing rent makes the rent go up - only fearmongering. It's a stopgap measure, though, since there still won't be enough housing to meet demand unless you also fix that at the same time.
Which you can also do as a city by just... building! You don't need some developer to come in, you can just do that as a local government!
The City of Vienna is the largest landlord in Europe. It is also the only capital in Europe without a stifling rent or housing crisis.
There is lots of evidence for that, but before I provide it I need to know if you will update your beliefs based on that.
Really? You have evidence that smaller numbers are bigger numbers?
Don't argue in bad faith. I have evidence that rent controls increase rent, not that smaller numbers are bigger numbers. Please read some evidence about policies you are supporting - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105113772...