Unlearning Economics — the pseudonymous economics blogger, writing in Current Affairs — takes on the profession’s most confident claim. In a 2012 poll, 81% of economists said rent control in cities like New York and San Francisco had not helped affordable housing; the strongest statement was Assar Lindbeck’s: rent control is “the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing.” The essay’s job is to show that unanimity rests on a textbook diagram, not the evidence.

The econ-101 case is simple: cap rents, and the quantity of housing supplied falls below equilibrium — a shortage. Sound airtight, but the model quietly assumes things the data contradict:

  • Rent control shrinks the supply of rent-controlled housing, not housing. Landlords sell to owner-occupiers or convert to exempt units — the homes don’t vanish. The famous San Francisco study’s “15% reduction in rental supply” is really 8% owner-occupied conversions plus 7% conversions to rent-control-exempt units.
  • Hard caps are rare. Berlin’s 2020 freeze (rents dropped, but landlords pulled properties off the market) was ruled unconstitutional within a year. Modern “second-generation” rent stabilization excludes new construction and allows renovation-based increases. When Cambridge, MA abolished rent control in 1995, there was no construction boom — just higher rents and displaced tenants.
  • Landlords are agents, not forces of nature. Their behavior is shaped by policy and can be reshaped: NYC requires 51% tenant approval before a building converts to owner-occupied housing, while San Francisco’s Ellis Act — which lets landlords evict everyone and exit the rental market — does most of the displacement blamed on rent control.

The essay’s sharpest move is on values. The SF paper frames rent control as “contributing to gentrification” because richer residents moved in — while the same study shows poorer and minority residents were kept from displacement. For 85% of San Francisco units, rent control simply controlled rents. Whether that trade-off is good or bad is a question about who deserves protection, not an arithmetic one.

Germany is the existence proof: the lowest home-ownership rate in the OECD (~50%, just 15% in Berlin), secure renters with no intention to buy. The takeaway: econ-101 offers general intuitions, but turning them into universal policy verdicts is “like invoking gravity to say space travel is impossible.” Rent control doesn’t destroy cities — and the policies that make it work are the ones that protect tenants’ rights.