Tampering with rents is just treating a symptom instead of the disease. The fundamental problem with housing is that too many people want to live in too few places where housing capacities are fundamentally limited. In the long run, there are only two possible solutions: one is creating more supply by building more houses or repurposing office spaces to housing spaces. The privileged few already living and/or owning real estate in the boom cities obviously want none of that since increased density and traffic would reduce the attractiveness of their neighborhood/price of their property.

The other approach is reducing demand for housing in the "top" cities. This can be achieved in three different ways: urban decay and crime (NYC in the 70s/80s), an active industrial policy which specifically tries to spread jobs out across the country and away from the boom cities, and increased teleworking such that people working in the corresponding fields dont have to live in close proximity to the inner city anymore.

My hope is that covid and increased pressure to cut unnecessary carbon emissions will serve as a catalyst for the latter. Increased teleworking imho is a win for everyone.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Dec 20 2020 05:09am

you cannot solve housing that way. Building more will relieve the symptoms but eventually the population will outgrow that surplus and earth has finite space. The rich/smart people will always figure out a way to accumulate more in this case houses. Only if the output in society is greater then its consumption will there be lack. SOME of homeless population also choose to be that way, so idealistic no homelessness is not realistic anyway

This is 100% correct.

antifa would make excellent compost for the garden and the organs would go well towards those who need it. So I say we give em a free funeral

Lol, they wont die for free, but for $800. Would you provide the $200 to make that happen?