One of the big issues in New York City has been whether the city should make its rent control laws even more stringent.  The original regulations first came into being in 1920 and were called the Emergency Rent Laws.  They have ensured that rental emergencies continue to this day.

As The Atlantic magazine notes:

“Few policies disgust academic economists quite like rent control. In the 1970s, the Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously described it as the “most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city–except for bombing.”

In a 2012 poll of prominent economists, just 2 percent said that rent-control laws have had “a positive impact” on the “amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them.” (The Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler sarcastically proposed a follow-up survey question: “Does the sun revolve around the earth?”)”

We would go one further and point out that in 1987, the Foreign Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Co Thach, disagreed with Lindbeck’s famous quip.  Nguyen said rent control was WORSE than bombing:

“The Americans couldn’t destroy Hanoi, but we have destroyed our city by very low rents. We realized it was stupid and that we must change policy.”