ctindel t1_j7i6jmc wrote on February 6, 2023 at 11:37 PM

Reply to comment by ManhattanRailfan in Federal court upholds NY rent stabilization laws, setting up possible Supreme Court showdown by ER301

> All you're really saying is that the free market is terrible at making housing affordable and we should massively expand public housing.

It isn't the "free market" that imposes stupid things like FAR limits and air rights, it's the government regulation that prevents people from tearing down buildings and replacing them with bigger ones in the first place.

ManhattanRailfan t1_j7i7t9r wrote on February 6, 2023 at 11:46 PM

Yeah, and it's the free market that allowed 10 to a room tenements with factories right next to homes, child labor, no safety codes, and blue fucking milk. I'm not saying zoning regs as they stand are good, but rent regulation is absolutely a good thing because landlords are universally terrible who see their tenants as nothing more than a source of income with little to no labor required. Even Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, thought landlords could get fucked, so obviously we should be keeping them on an extremely tight leash.

ctindel t1_j7i92dh wrote on February 6, 2023 at 11:55 PM

> Yeah, and it's the free market that allowed 10 to a room tenements

Well, when the city doesn't allow you to build supply that matches demand, that's how people can afford it.

> with factories right next to homes

Separating industrial from residential doesn't cause the housing supply to be limited though. I don't think there's any problem with this.

> rent regulation is absolutely a good thing because landlords are universally terrible who see their tenants as nothing more than a source of income with little to no labor required.

If you believe that being a landlord/super is no work, especially in NYC, then you've never done it.

Anyway, the answer is to make it so the majority of people aren't renters but owners. That way they aren't beholden to these evil landlords you hate so much. This should be a country of owners, and instead of limiting construction we should allow unlimited construction as long as the buildings are coops that are affordable by the middle class and have to be owner-occupied as a primary residence by covenant.