People tend to have a hard time, when faced with a decision that contains two bad choices. Making the least bad choice, even when necessary, causes a lot of men

People tend to have a hard time, when faced with a decision that contains two bad choices. Making the least bad choice, even when necessary, causes a lot of mental anguish and there's a strong desire to concoct a fictional third choice that magically absolves everyone from guilt. We know from varying urban policy around the world that not raising rents is in many ways worse than raising rents. If the rent becomes too disconnected from market pricing, the shock of any dislocation is life ruining. Dislocation is always going to happen, buildings get sold, they need to get torn down, accidents render it uninhabitable etc. Better to have the rent raised gradually so people can proactively make decisions to alter their circumstances than for it to happen all at once. Those landlords weren't suffering from a morality deficiency, they simply recognized that you're often confronted with hard choices in life and it's best to remain unsentimental about making the least bad one.