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At best you'll produce consumer surplus for lucky renters, and you'll produce sad outsiders who'd be willing to to pay even more but can't get in. Everyone know
by Y_Y 7y ago
At best you'll produce consumer surplus for lucky renters, and you'll produce sad outsiders who'd be willing to to pay even more but can't get in. Everyone knows this is an issue with insufficient supply (of housing or of nice alternative places to live) but it is popular to put a ban on symptoms.
- WhompingWindows 7y agoRather than think of it as insufficient supply, why not think of it as excessive demand? If there is a trend across the developed world of moving into city cores and working high-paying jobs, then it seems that demand is more at fault. These are very old cities with entrenched interests, do they have the political quickness to respond to these demand trends?
- blub 7y agoYeah, not everyone has to live in Berlin. Better that the current citizens have reasonable living conditions than everyone paying through their nose. Everyone knows about supply and demand, few know what the situation's like in Berlin or even care to find out before supplying us with economic platitudes for which there is little if any demand at all.
- cperciva 7y agoBetter that the current citizens have reasonable living conditions... What makes current citizens more deserving than the people who want to live in Berlin but won't be able to due to policies which reduce the supply of housing?
- blub 7y agoAssuming they have a home in Berlin, the fact that they already live there makes them deserving. A home is unlike any other material good and the basis of securing a livelihood, it should not be allowed to exploit tenants for profit. AirBnB'ers and other speculators are of course not deserving at all.
- oh_sigh 7y agoPeople who own and live in their home in Berlin aren't affected by a rent freeze though. It is only renters, who by definition do not own where they live.
- blub 7y agoI used "home" in the metaphorical sense in my former comment. A roof over one's head, place where one lives, etc. One of the pillars of our lives, even in times such as these, where people move around much more.