By Adam Frisch, Managing Principal, Mantus Real Estate
Ever since states such as Oregon and New York as well as various municipalities across California have begun enacting stringent rent reform, I can’t help but notice the difference in economic education that has been offered to Millennials vs. those who have lived through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Today, various young politicians on city councils and state legislatures as well as members of housing authorities and advocacy groups think that rent reform and so-called “tenant protection” measures should be enacted at all costs. Little do they know that what they think are such benevolent policies are actually wreaking havoc on the free market and may actually lead to a regression of the community revitalization that has been happening in places such as Harlem and Oakland. An intriguing study published earlier this year in the American Economic Association’s Papers and Proceedings examined the effects of sudden rent decontrol in Cambridge, Mass., in 1995 and how this policy caused overall crime to fall by 16 percent.
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