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Rent Control refers to laws or ordinances that regulate how much a property can be rented for or how much rent can be increased at
certain times, such as the renewal of a lease.
In the United States, rent control is rare outside of cities with
large tenant populations, such as New York and San
Francisco. Smaller communities also have rent control, notably Santa Monica, California and many small towns in New
Jersey. In recent years, several cities, such as Boston and Cambridge,
Massachusetts, have ended rent control, while others, including Santa Monica, have limited its reach to cover only poorer
tenants or existing tenants.
Proponents of rent control claim that it is necessary to prevent greedy landlords from evicting the elderly and the poor, a consequence of
gentrification.
Opponents of rent control, which according to surveys include over 90 percent of economists of all political views, ranging
from Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek to Paul Krugman and Gunnar Myrdal, claim that rent control results in an overall decrease in the
quantity and quality of housing stock in a city, and that its benefits accrue disproportionately to the wealthy and
well-connected. They argue that the goal of making housing affordable and available to the poor can be accomplished by a variety
of more efficient methods, though the nature of the preferred remedy, if any at all, varies with different economists.
Conservative and libertarian opponents also consider it an intrusion into the free market and an immoral abrogation of a landlord's right over his property.
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