Once More into the Rent Control Abyss

Once More into the Rent Control Abyss

Description

Rent control has been a source of controversy and confusion since its constitutionality was first sustained in 1921 by a bare five-to-four vote in Block v. Hirsh. Over the next 100-plus years, various permutations on the basic rent control design have been developed by imaginative governments, only to be vigorously attacked on a range of inventive constitutional theories relating to property, contract, and equal protection. In virtually every case, subject to only one minor exception of theoretical interest, the outcome is clear: these counterattacks have been foiled, so that rent control laws today look to be per se legal, no matter their form, origins, or effects. Yet this uniform triumphant success of rent control statutes should be the source of social anxiety, not jubilation. Today's rent control rules are no longer a minor irritation whose impact will diminish over time. Rent control has grown from its modest origins into a powerful and entrenched system. It is run by multiple state and city administrative agencies, backed by specialized courts, and politically supported by cohesive tenant lobbying groups. Their combined efforts have now demonstrated an increasing capacity to upend housing markets in major cities in both the short and the long term.

First Page

173

DOI

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035311361.00016

Source Publication

Rethinking the Law of Private Property

Source Editors/Authors

Jan G. Laitos

Publication Date

7-22-2025

Publisher

Edward Elgar Publishing

Once More into the Rent Control Abyss

Find @ NYU

Share

COinS