Name: Controlling Rents
Author: Michael Manville

Course Info

8 video lessons (76 Mins)
Published
2022
4.51

Preview Course

Browse Course Chapters

1.

Introduction

2 mins
2.

What Rent Control Aims to Achieve

5 mins
3.

Price Ceilings and Their Consequences

18 mins
4.

First Generation or 'Hard' Rent Ceilings

15 mins
5.

Second Generation, 'Soft' Rent Ceilings

12 mins
6.

Second Generation, 'Soft' Rent Ceilings Part 2

13 mins
7.

Sources and Symptoms

6 mins
8.

So What Can Be Done?

3 mins

What You Will Learn

Understand what rent control laws are, and what they try to accomplish
Understand the history of rent control, and how it has changed over time
The evidence: does rent control work?
Understand alternative approaches to helping renters, and especially low-income renters

Course Description

Many American urban areas are in the grip of a housing crisis, with the burdens of that crisis falling most heavily on renters. A seemingly straightforward response to the crisis, then, is to enact rent control: pass laws to either keep rents from rising or to regulate the pace at which they are allowed to rise.

It would be an understatement to call rent control controversial. Many tenants support it, most landlords despise it, economists are notoriously suspicious of it, and some cities are considering it. St. Paul, Minnesota has enacted rent control i recent years, and Boston is considering bringing it back. Cities that already have rent control are entertaining proposals to make their rules more stringent.

What is the rent control debate all about? Is rent control an effective way to advance housing affordability? This course will introduce planners to the rent control debate and discuss what rent control is able to accomplish, and where it often has unintended consequences.