The paper you cited saying rent control works actually says that rent control is counterproductive. The goal of rent control is to reduce rents, says so right in the name. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well.

Many of the hill towns in Pioneer Valley don't have cell service, let alone internet that isn't satellite.

Not confusing anything the term “white flight” people moving out of Boston for towns with better schools was limited in scope, and only affected a few streets/areas if you lived through this you would know that.

Don't just read the abstract.

Reducing displacement of current renters in the goal of rent control. That's the primary objective. It is not a fix all soluton to housing costs.

>The effects of rent control expansion on tenants landlords and inequality.

From the abstract of that article:

"we find rent control limits renters' mobility by 20 percent and lowers displacement from San Francisco. Landlords treated by rent control reduce rental housing supplies by 15 percent by selling to owner-occupants and redeveloping buildings. Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law."

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20181289

I think you might be confusing the phenomenon of White flight during the 70s/80s in Boston. That can be attributed more to forced busing than rent control. I know, I lived through it.

Lot of neoliberal YIMBYs suggesting that the solution to the problem of high rents caused by price gouging developer-landlords is...to give developer-landlords even more power. Right.

No matter how much you deregulate, the landlords are never going to build themselves out of a profit. It's literally just repackaging trickle-down economics, and like Reagan, it ignores (or rather, gleefully embraces) the fact that the landlord class is out to maximize their profits, not solve a social problem. If that means sitting on empty lots, that's exactly what they'll do (and have done).

The correct thing to do here is to massively expand the NON-MARKET housing stock. State owned, tenant owned, nonprofit owned, as long as it's non-market. It's the only way to guarantee that enough housing will be built, and that it won't price out working people. (It also forces the competition that the YIMBYs just assume exists in a vacuum.) Vienna is an excellent example of this in practice; two thirds of the city's housing stock is non-market and it's one of the most affordable cities in Europe (especially if we account for like, whether you'd actually want to live there; we're not counting Pripyat here).

BU has grade deflation? I’m feeling a little flattered now. I thought it was inflated.

Why do we need to build up internet in rural communities I would rather not

Rent control rigs the game in a way that creates a series of perverse incentives. If you imagine renting like a game of musical chairs, rent control stops the music. Permanently. It artificially divides renters into winners and losers. The winners are the people who manage to land a rent controlled apartment when the music stops. The losers are everyone else.

Now the losers are really stuck. It becomes incredibly hard to find a rent controlled apartment. The prices for everything that's left go up even more, and the incentive to build new housing plummets. Why would you build high density housing if the big bad government is going to come in and tell you what you can charge?

Even the winners are hurt, because they can't move. The rent controlled apartment they've managed to land becomes a trap. If they move, they're going to join the losers in their desperate struggle to find a rent controlled apartment. So they stay in the same apartment long after it becomes the right place for them to live.

I do agree that the housing market in Boston in particular and Massachusetts in general is in bad straits. But rent control will only solve the problem for a fraction of the populace. And even then it will come with real downsides. The rest of the populace will suffer even more.

I don’t think you should be able to do that legally. Just my opinion.

...And neither do I. But landlords do need to be able to evict people, and they do need to get a fair market return for their properties.

The regulations that I would like to see gone are the regulations that make it harder to build, but I don't pretend to be an expert on housing policy. I just know that the current problem is one of inadequate supply, and that rent control would exacerbate the problem.

We want the same things. It's just about what we think is the right road to get there.

HELL YEAH RENT CONTROL STATEWIDE!!!!

Rebecca Diamond

Tim McQuade

Franklin Qian

Who’s the author? I’ll check it out

I read a few papers about it. The big one was a look at San Francisco's rent control. It was titled "The effects of rent control expansion on tenants landlords and inequality.

I'll check it out at some point.

I mean small-time LLs can form an LLC to purchase their properties to protect themselves financially. For example, if I inherit my mom’s house, I’ll probably form an LLC to be the “owner” of the property and rent it out.

While it ensures people don’t get evicted due to LL raising costs too much, it also ensures those people will NEVER give up their rent controlled place. Look at what happened in NYC with people passing on their apartments to their heirs for generations. What we really need is rent stabilization (allowing LL to only raise rent by X% per year, not allowing heirs to inherit the deal, etc).

Which one? (Might I suggest The Power of Productivity by William Lewis?)

Are there actually rural communities in MA without internet? TIL wow

So, did you address my point, or did you refuse to because it's unsubstantiated nonsense? How can the essential premise of what you're saying change so drastically in under fifteen minutes?

Yeah, if you prop up your argument with absolutely nothing but a faulty, unsubstantiated premise, it’s going to be treated as it is: an opinion being stated as fact. Funny that.

You did not refute anything I said. You bluntly refused to address my actual points while ranting about free trade's effect on the environment because I likened the consensus of economists to that of scientists.

Well considering you made two points and I’m addressing one directly, I think I’m good. You present two dramatic points without a shred of evidence then ask other people to refute that in a concise and verbose manner and when one does, you say no no not that—my real point. Have a good one, bud.

I see a distinct failure to address my actual point.