A Wall Street Journal video argues that rent control fails to solve the underlying housing shortage and instead makes it worse by discouraging new construction. The video, produced as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushes for a rent freeze on the city’s 2 million stabilized units, notes that nearly 50,000 New York apartments sit vacant because rental owners cannot charge enough rent to justify the cost of necessary repairs. Only 2% of economists surveyed by the University of Chicago’s Clark Center agree that rent control improves housing affordability.
Watch the video here: https://www.wsj.com/video/can-rent-control-fix-the-housing-crisis/1B3DA25F-BA8A-401D-92EA-963323879F82
