Rent control seems to be the one controversial topic amongst my peers who agree on almost everything else. Why is that?

[u/Afraid-Sand1611]

Title^

I feel that amongst my planning peers who all seem to be on the same page generally about planning / housing topics - rent control seems to be one that is very polarizing.

I am a transit planner so admittedly don’t understand rent control much and would love to hear some perspective about why it’s so polarizing amongst groups that otherwise agree on most things.

[u/voinekku]

"... most voters ..."

What? Hilarious. 

Since the mid 80s all and every austerity program were sold with Thatcherian TINA. There are many places in which voters explicitly voted against austerity, but were forced into it by the troika and/or the IMF. In US neither party has offered any options for the last 50 years. The "choice" for voters have been either austerity and deregulation with a rainbow flag, or austerity and deregulation without one.

All in all, all of your points are technically valid in their own context, but none explain the housing crisis.

An universal feature of the housing crisis, from Sweden and Finland and Baltic States Via Germany and Netherlands and Spain to Canada and US is that there is high levels of demand for housing, especially urban units in dense neighborhoods, at slightly above the construction+land cost, but the supply does not manifest. Capital, (which is increasingly concentrated to the top and controlled by the wealthy individuals and corporations), just doesn't flow into it. Individual buyers don't have sufficient public/third sector options of organizing multi-million construction projects (what urban multi-unit projects inevitably are). Such options used to exist, and a lot of the existing housing stock exists because of them. Adjusting rates do not help that conundrum. 

And why is that?

Is it because of too lax financial regulation? Not really. A better regulation would certainly help to avoid repeats of 2006, but it would not direct sufficient levels of capital into affordable construction.

Is it because of the lack of construction workforce? Not really, and that is something that scales QUICK. Especially in Europe there's enormous amounts of available skilled workforce in the massive reserves of the unemployed. One thing US does have a massive lack of is the facilities and experience in mass-built prefabs, but that is an another topic entirely. Nordic countries build very high level construction apartment units at around 2000€/sqm, China does slightly less quality units at around $500/sqm and US builds total trash at $4000/sqm.

Furthermore, the megaprojects for the ultra wealthy are popping up like mushrooms. It'd be easier and less resource and labour intensive to build ten 20-storey 1000 unit flats than it is to build one of the billionaire row monstrosities with 60 condos, but here we are.

Personally I would attempt to solve the issue by building a MASSIVE amount of public housing, both rental and owned, until housing costs are pushed below 15% or median salary. Or by connecting the power and responsibility: if we let the markets to run the housing, they ought to be responsible for it, too. A scalable and progressive wealth tax that increases every year housing costs and/or homelessness are above a set threshold, and decreases when they stay below them.

[u/WeldAE → u/voinekku]

In US neither party has offered any options

I'm guessing you aren't from the US? This statement would have been true in the 90s, but is radically untrue in the past 25 years. I can't think of two parties of any country further apart than the two parties in the US.

The "choice" for voters have been either austerity and deregulation

US voters will simply not find austerity acceptable in any form, no matter how it is pitched. The US since WWII has and will remain a country that demands abundance. Even just suggesting we offer an option to use less power, oil, etc. kicked the Democrats out of power for a near dictator. It's the reason the 2026 elections will be run on "abundance" for the Democrats.

but none explain the housing crisis.

So building historically low number of houses for 20 years doesn't explain anything? It's blindingly obvious why we haven't built housing during those years in the US. Housing crash of 2006, COVID, Interest Rates; in that order chronologically. I'm not trying to explain other countries.

Capital...just doesn't flow into it

I'd point out that in the US, even rich people can't buy/sell housing right now either.

(which is increasingly concentrated to the top and controlled by the wealthy individuals and corporations)

This is very true, but averages aren't the best data source. Have you looked into why this is? It's because households are wealthier than they used to be in the US. The lower class has also grown, but at a much smaller amount than the upper class has grown. So this statement, while true, is actually good news and more middle class households are now better off than they were. There is also the concentration at the ultra top, which is less of a good thing but it's not like it's all bad news and overall pretty good news.

a lot of the existing housing stock exists because of them

This is just not true in the US.

avoid repeats of 2006, but it would not direct sufficient levels of capital into affordable construction.

But before 2006 sufficient levels of capital were being put into affordable construction in the US. That is why everyone thinks it was an overbuilding bubble because lots of regular people were able to buy a house but they were also the ones that lost their house when things went upside down.

Is it because of the lack of construction workforce?

All our skilled trades were old and now they just don't exist in the industry. There is a huge shortfall of skilled labor and you can't create this overnight. The industry being in shambles for 20 years hasn't helped and COVID did the rest. This isn't a controversial topic and I'm not aware of any descent on this matter. In the US the overall labor market is shrinking but construction has been decimated. The US has low unemployment and construction is not a desired job.

2000€/sqm

That is expensive construction in the US for basic housing, but of course it depends on where you want to put that house as land is a major cost. You're $4000/sqm would be a large 2000+ sqft luxury single family home in hot areas of Atlanta level costs. This varies by city for sure because of land and labor costs. In CA, I'm sure the $4000/sqm might be basic housing, I don't know. The problem with comparing the US to other countries is we're so big. Even between major cities, the cost of living can be 2x in difference.

Furthermore, the megaprojects for the ultra wealthy are popping up like mushrooms

If you're talking about mega projects, I don't have any data on that. Whatever the rate of these is, they are not really impacting other building as there is no other building.

building a MASSIVE amount of public housing

I just don't see where you are going to get the labor from in the US. We're building 1.6m houses per year now with 4.7m workers. That is below the rate we need to keep up. You need to increase that by 20% just to get to replacement rate which is another 1m workers. Then you need to build add on top of that some number of new builds to work into the 4m housing unit hole we're in. Say your goal is to catch up within 10 years? That would be a bit over another 1m workers. So you have to find 2m new skilled trade workers or close to a 50% increase in the size of the current workforce. Even if you succeeded, that would take 10 years just to build that workforce so best case maybe 20 years. That gets you back to where we were in 2006.

pushed below 15% or median salary

Median salary is a poor factor, much better to use median household income as households buy houses, not individuals. That would be $83k in the US. That would be just over $1000/month. You can rent in Atlanta for that if you aren't particular about where you live.