A couple of weeks ago just as I was leaving my apartment to go to the gym, a random dude stopped me to gather signatures for rent control. I tried evading him using various tactics, but none worked and in the end I had to pretend to have a limited understanding of the English language to get away from him. And that's when I realized this fkn city needs some sort of economic activism etcetera to get going, against stupid policies that sound good on paper but have terrible awful implications.
Where I'm going at with is this: people, listen up, and listen good. Rent control is a terrible, awful idea, for all the parties concerned, except for people already living in a city. It hinders cities' growth, makes coming into a new place impossible for outsiders, is anti-consumer, anti-housing, does not solve the problem of homelessness, does not ultimately solve the problem of expensive housing, instead forcing the renters to pay for their rents with longer crazier commutes. And rent control will work only as long as employers and their employees are willing to stand up all the BS you put in your town, once the amount of political grandstanding and shitty policies gets above the line, your policies will hasten towards turning your town into a frozen wasteland. Check out Berlin's experience with rent control, or any Eastern European Country's to understand the implications. Do not do it. Under no circumstances. Like seriously, though. Even if you use it as a political slogan in your initial run, to get the stupid and young crowd, give it some goddamn thought, and realize that the implication of legally forcing landlords to not increase rents above an artificially set threshold will discourage them from maintaining their units, discourage new units being built, which will in the end cause even greater housing shortage. Fuckin' encourage more dense housing, you dumdums.
End of rant, you may now get back to your regular meals. Frozen and thawed in the stove.
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