Rent control is raised as an issue in city after city either because the city does not have rent control and some tenants' and liberal groups believe it should be instituted, or because the city does have rent control and critics want it abolished because of the damage they see it has done to housing, repair and construction, and even social relationships. Rent control is an idea with great appeal for the beleaguered tenant who feels that rents are too high and that there has been no government effort to correct the problem. Advocates see it as a way of imposing fairness, but in truth it imposes unfairness and disparity between people who have rented for a long time and new renters. It reduces the incentives landlords have to repair their buildings and to make improvements. It takes the profit out of being a landlord, and it effectively eliminates competition in housing in urban regions. In many cases, it has also created a black market in sublets, with those paying little for rent because they have rent-controlled apartments and renting them for higher prices to others illegally. An examination of the issue as it has developed over the past several decades will show why rent control is a bad idea and why it has not even accomplished its stated goals, let alone avoided creating new problems.
Tucker (1988) states the issue clearly with reference to New York City when he writes:
New York's legendary "housing shortage" began the day in 1947 when the huge tenant majority convinced the politicians (and eventually the courts) to extend wartime price controls into permanent housing regulation. Since that day, finding a place to five has gradually become the predominating obsession of the average New Yorker. The premise of Tama Janowitz's best selling Slaves of New York -in case you didn't realize it -is that everyone in New York is the slave of their own apartment. No one can flee a drug infested neighborhood- or even break off ...