Talk:Rent control in the United States/Archive 1

Archive 1

Clarification on what rent control means

It is important to describe the different policies that rent control entails. It could mean limiting rent increases, limiting the change in rent with new tenants, or automatically renewing leases.

For instance, Ontario has implemented the first and last policies, with increases linked to the CPI; Quebec all three policies, with increases based only on fuel prices; and in New York City again all three, with increases either frozen (rent control) or linked to the CPI (rent stabilization). Moreover, each jurisdiction does not apply the controls to apartment buildings built in the recent past: for NYC rent control/stabilization applies to buildings built decades ago, for Ontario before the early 1990s, and for Quebec all except those built in the last several years. It is important to note that each set of policies affects the market differently.

G. Csikos, 21 October 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.84.91 (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

History

I don't know the details, but it should be mentioned that there is also rent control in Canada, especially Toronto and Winnipeg. CPS 05:13, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The only information that could be found on that country is a section on [http://www.ontariotenants.ca/rent-controls.phtml Ontario Canada Rent Controls]

Rent control in Canada is in the provincial jurisdiction. Ontario has had rent control legislation since the seventies, other provinces may or may not have rent control. Ottawahitech 22:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

There should also be mention of rent control in France, specifically in Paris. It was instituted during World War I and repealed in the early 1980s - ironically, by the socialist government of François Mitterrand, as it was believed that rent control benefited the wealthy and failed to benefit the poor.

--- Two notes: (Which I welcome others to address)

1)I believe (but am not sure) that Rent Control in Boston and Cambridge, MA was ended by the passage of a state law, and not by each respective city, as stated by this article.

 [You are correct, and I've taken the liberty of updating the article to reflect that.  - TVC_15, April 25, 2006]

2)Economist Thomas Sowell discusses Rent Control in his books, Basic Economics and Applied Economics, in detail. These sources could add valuable insight to this article.

-- Seems to have some confusion between the motive for rent control laws, which vary with the advocate, and the purpose of the law itself. The latter, at least in California, are usually more restrained and balanced. LarryB

-- The Costa-Hawkins Act of 1998 limited the ability of California cities to institute rent control other than for existing tenants. It was intended to end the rent control programs of Santa Monica, Berkeley, and West Hollywood. It was not those cities who limited rent control to existing tenants but the state of California, through that law.

--That is incorrect. The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act prohibited the application of rent control to new construction (among other things). it was not intended to end rent control anywhere and if that had been its purpse it has failed miserably. See California Civil Code Sections 1954.50 - 1954.535. Also see Landlord Law by Brown, Warner & Portman (Nolo Press) for an accurate depiction of rent control in California. If the previous poster is a landlord, I highly recommend that you buy and study this book. LarryB

--In fact, the comment about the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act is partially correct. One section of the Act mandates vacancy decontrol. When a new tenant moves in, initial rents are set by the landlord without restriction in most cases. Whatever its intended purpose, it did reduce the effectiveness of rent control in California. rnemcik —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.232.103.109 (talk)

--Have made a number of edits to change the tone of the article from something that was, or was about, the political debate to something that is more about rent control itself. Hope to add a paragraph on the history of rent control when I get the chance. As it stands the article is primarily American, but would need to research Canadian, New Zealand and, apparently, French laws to change that. LarryB

--Removed "trailer park" as a term that mobilehome owners consider insulting. My experience in California is that the term is no longer in common use. (If you have the political clout to get a rent control law, nobody will call you trailer trash, or at least won't do it twice). If there are rent control laws in regions where mobilehome parks are commonly called "trailer parks", please let me know.Larry B 22:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

--Strengthened and clarified addition on unethical landlords. Every group has some crooks and they, like the rest of us, adapt to new conditions.Larry B 21:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Not Neutral

This article seems to be loaded with charged words that keeps it slanted somewhat, such as "unethical landlords." I'm not sure how best to remedy this situation, so if anyone knows more about the situation it would help.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Whistlesgowhoo (talk • contribs) .

To say that a law is unjust would be POV. To say that disobeying a law is unethical is also POV. I propose to do neither in this article. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

A difficult task indeed. Having chased "unethical" landlords for a couple decades (including one who engaged in the serial rape of recent Cambodian immigrant tenants) with the other landlords assisting or quietly cheering us on, "unethical" was as value nuetral as I could manage. At one point the article had more of a alternation of POV's (where "unethical" might fit) but transitioning beyond that seems to work better. Larry B 16:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is the against section flagged as not neutral but not the for section? Presumably neither section can be neutral. Albertod4 (talk) 14:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point about the flag, although at least one of the arguments "against" seems too broad (the one about property rights) so I'll narrow it slightly; maybe then someone will remove the flag? Regarding the allegedly "slanted" phrase "unethical landlords," however, using that phrase does not imply a slant against all landlords; to the contrary, it implies some landlords are ethical, because otherwise the phrase would be redundant.TVC 15 04:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC) 03:13, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to balance a bit, so hopefully the flag can be removed. I narrowed the "against" argument slightly, and removed the statement about vacant buildings in NYC because it was unlinkable and outdated. (NYC had many vacant buildings in the 1970s and 1980s, but has had rent control since the 1940s, through housing booms and busts.) I also added a "for" argument regarding taxes. Finally, I added a hopefully NPOV statement in the introductory section, comparing rent control to zoning and urban planning. At the risk of sounding presumptuous and antagonizing every constituency, I hope people will consider the article more balanced now, and the arguments more focused.TVC 15 04:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The argument against rent control still seems strident, but it often is. I've added a paragraph to the "for" section describing the factors that seem to be in play and discussed when cities debate rent control. Hopefully this will help balance things overall. As a general comment, those arguing against rent control often ignore the fact that a serious problem has to already exist before people will spend their time debating rent control. It would be wonderful if market forces magically solved those problems but in the communities that have adopted rent control the market doesn't seemed to have worked the way some wish it would. Of course, communities that consider and reject rent controls seem to feel that their problems aren't severe enough for that solution, which is also a good result. Larry B (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point about the factors that lead to enactment of rent control. I've added a small paragraph to the "for" section linking rent controls to property tax controls such as Proposition 13, with a link to a magazine article that includes Prop 13 among the factors that led to enactment of San Francisco's rent control law. I was thinking of adding that link and another to support your paragraph, but the sources I found are ironic: SF Apartment Magazine (published by a landlord group) ran a mostly objective article titled "The Birth of Rent Control in San Francisco,"[1] and the usually more liberal SF Weekly elaborated on the same history in an article titled "The Case for Ending Rent Control" [2]. The stridency of some arguments against rent control seems related to an absolutist view of property rights, ignoring the fact that the property rights of landlords depend on a larger legal structure that adjusts to societal developments.TVC 15 (talk) 00:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added two links to the External Links section, both to government sites listing communities that have rent control. I wonder if we should organize the links section similarly to the rest of the article, i.e. subsections for introductory and scope-related links (e.g. official lists of communities that have rent control), articles in favor, articles against, and an article on history and enforcement. That would help neutrality by making apparent how many links are for and against, and it would provide some context to differentiate objective reference links from argument links.TVC 15 (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Today an anonymous URL flagged the article contesting neutrality but without further comment. The article has changed a couple of times today, so it is unclear which version was being flagged. Also, due to the anonymity and lack of discussion accompanying the flag, there is no clear way to respond. Larklight's most recent edit had inserted arguments against into the introduction section, and into other sections (even the sections for arguments in favor), and I agree that was not neutral, so I reverted that. My guess is the flag was probably based on the previous version that has already been reverted. Ordinarily the article should have a neutral introduction and sections describing the subject; this particular article also has sections explicitly for arguments in favor and against; each argument by itself is expressly not neutral, but hopefully they add up to a neutral forum by presenting fairly both sides of a continuing policy debate. I will wait to see if the anonymous URL follows the flag with some kind of explanation, and if there is none remove the flag.TVC 15 (talk) 21:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Globalising

If this article were extended to include the United Kingdom, I would suggest a discussion of the Rent Act 1977 and the concept of a "fair rent" be included (even though these concepts are now considered outmoded in the UK). DWaterson (talk) 22:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added an External link to a remarkably comprehensive site on global housing including rent control, specifically an article addressing pros and cons and providing links to detailed information on dozens of jurisdictions worldwide: [3]. Although the site is intended primarily for landlords and prospective landlords, the article is surprisingly well balanced and the author appears to have read and understood the debate here on Wikipedia. I placed it as the lead External link, and am thinking of putting something in the lead about rent control around the world.TVC 15 (talk) 05:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

introductory paragraph

An anonymous URL (76.233.218.131) deleted an entire paragraph of reliably sourced information, having made no other edits anywhere on Wikipedia. The anonymous URL claimed the information was not relevant to the article, because the article's introductory sentence describes rent control solely as a price control. In fact, rent control confers upon tenants a right to remain in their homes so long as they pay the legal rent and meet various other conditions. The affected paragraph presented reliable sources reporting that, in the absence of rent control, even tenants paying market rent can be forced out through no fault of their own (e.g. if the landlords borrowed excessively and the property goes into foreclosure). Perhaps we should clarify the introductory paragraph - although no one else has suffered such confusion in the past. Meanwhile, I have restored the paragraph.TVC 15 (talk) 21:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Format

Would this be a better layout?

Issues

Economic

For

Against

Social

For

Against

Moral

For

Against

Larklight (talk) 20:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Larklight - The layout would be ok either way, but I absolutely had to revert your most recent edit because it went far beyond rearranging the layout and instead put arguments against into almost every section (including the introduction and even the sections for arguments in favor). For example, in the introduction, you added a claim that rent control causes housing shortages; that claim is debatable, based on outdated surveys, and anyway belongs in the argument section. Also, among the arguments in favor, you re-wrote one to say things like "housing and apartment investment decreases with rent control," which is also debatable and besides is an argument against. (BTW, look at the NYC skyline, and you will see that housing investment has increased dramatically even in the presence of rent control.) The article should and did begin with a neutral description of what rent control is, then provides a forum for arguments for and against. I have no objection to your adding rightist conservative arguments against rent control but please put them in the right section.TVC 15 (talk) 21:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Larklight's suggestion is a good one. Also, whether the NYC skyline is covered in new construction is irrelevant to whether there would be more construction and more affordable housing without rent control :) --Gloriamarie (talk) 20:25, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Belated reply to Gloriamarie's comment above. First, the new construction is relevant because it illustrates the fact that Larklight's statement was too broad and is sometimes wrong. To the contrary, as stated in the article, housing investment may increase or decrease with rent control, depending on other factors. Housing investment has since moderated in NYC (as elsewhere) due to global changes in the housing market. It would be interesting to see how these global changes affect neighboring jurisdictions with and without rent control. I suspect that zoning is a much stronger factor in determining construction and the availability of affordable housing, e.g. prohibiting new construction will directly produce a shortage, while regulating rents on already occupied housing has only indirect effects on available supply.TVC 15 (talk) 11:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The bit on mobile homes

The article currently says:

"In the case of mobile home rent control, that state is actually transferring the value of the property from the owner of the land to the owner of the mobile home. Thus, mobile homes in certain highly desirable locations in California sell for an excess of a million dollars, even as the owner of the site which allows for that high price enjoys none of that increase in value as it is realized entirely by the owner of the mobile home."

Which sounds reasonable enough, but why is it under the "Arguments against" section? 68.162.218.11 (talk) 17:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Dunno - and there is no citation to explain, so it should probably be removed.TVC 15 (talk) 09:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Economic viewpoint

I intend to add the economist's viewpoint, as I think it would add massively to the article. The economics of rent control are simple, yet as all parties would concede, massively important to the issue. To this end, I propose trifurcation of the article into history of rent control, political debate concerning rent control, and economics of rent control. Indeed? Thoughts? Zenosparadox 22:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC) (apologies, I was not logged in).

So far all the comments that mention economists have been more political than anything else and and I hope your comments would be more balanced. I don't, however, think that an econoomic analysis merits equal space with the political debate. After 26 years of involvement with this topic I've found that people are more interested in what kind of community they have than in the purely economic questions. People's decisions and opinions on rent control include economics, but there other questions that seem, in the end, to be more important: Are people being unfairly taken advantage of? Is the problem large enough to merit spending our time on a political solutions? Will we end up with a community we like or dislike? Communities with rent controls (or other price limits or subsidies, for that matter) may adopt them because they value other factors more than economics. I think the article best serves the reader by describing what rent controls are and by being a mirror to the actual debates. Larry B 22:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that these so called "other factors" are not part of economics.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.187.0.164 (talk) 21:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC) 

With degrees in economics and law, I respectfully suggest the practical economics of rent control are less simple than they might seem in theory. For that reason, I have added a paragraph on how the housing market differs from theoretical "efficient markets" and how rent control laws compensate somewhat for that inefficiency. I think the political debate should consider the economic incentives carefully, because policies that ignore economics tend over time to produce increasingly undesirable results. Economic theory usually argues against price controls, with good reason, but appropriate regulation can balance otherwise inefficient markets. TVC_15, 25 April 2006.

Good comment on the practical economics not being simple. As for the political debate, I've been impressed with how the "mom & pop" landlords, homeowners and faith based groups operate more from a basis of some landlords behaving in a manner they consider bad. One author (whose name escapes me) claims price controls originated with early Christians reacting to price increases during famines and the like. Whether or not that is true, important constituencies in the political debate do seem to have the same reaction. Ultimately, politicians will count votes, decide to keep their jobs and act accordingly. Larry B 00:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I also wanted to add my kudos to whoever authored the economic portions of this article, presenting fairly both points of view. Really nice job.--Mantanmoreland 15:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you're mislead, like most people, that there are political factors that are more important than economic ones. Rent control originated when people decided, without any rational basis, that they were being taken advantage of by landlords and that landlords were extracting unfair profits from rents. People accuse the oil companies of the same thing, and the utilities companies, and countless other industries. How can people arbitrarily decide what price is fair? Only the market can decide. If you asked a landlord what a "fair" rent would be, he would probably want a number higher than the market price. Consumers want a price lower than the market price. In the market, these forces find equilibrium at the market clearing price. However, since landlords are a minority, renters decided they can outvote landlords and petition to their local governments to mandate price controls. The landlords can't do anything about it because in a democracy, majority rules. The renters get their way and the landlords get screwed. Of course, what the renters don't know is that they are also screwing themselves with the price controls because it simply creates a shortage as landlords decide to supply less housing because they aren't being rewarded enough.Mac520 (talk) 22:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

The article fails to properly explain what the idea behind rent control is before going into arguments for or against it. 66.87.91.36 22:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

  Seconded 220.253.7.199 13:42, 8 February 2011 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.7.199 (talk)  

"Law of Rent"?

The section de facto saying that the rise in rents in California after 1978 (in reality part of the general monetary inflation in the United States at that time) was due to David Ricardo's "Law of Rent" was written as if Frank Fetter (and many others) had never written a word. Presenting an economic theory, including the "Law of Rent", is fine - as long as one also presents opposition to that theory.90.211.148.249 (talk) 09:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Fetter wrote in the 1900s when there was no rent control. He can hardly be considered as a reference. If there are respected expert writers who express an opinion you are thinking should be emphasized in this article, point them out. Binksternet (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

More information on California rent control, specifically cases in San Francisco before the Rent Board

I wonder if I can add information about some of the cases before the San Francisco rent board; I do feel it would serve local populations, state level queries, etc. The task would be to retain an NPOV. The rental market situation is reaching a crisis level, no one who works, even for government, in San Francisco can afford to live here. Also, I am cognizant that other sections may have some of the info I would begin to present, but I can always make links, not try to do everything here. Please share wisdom, policy protocols that might guide this task. User:KSRolph — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.0.192.34 (talk) 19:28, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Clear evidence that Binksternet simply deletes things he doesn't agree with rather than reading the references.

Read the latest revert. Governing (magazine) is NOT Government Technology.

Why would ANYONE in their right mind assume that SCIENTOLOGISTS would have anything to do with putting out information about RENT CONTROL?

Apparently Binksternet thinks he can fabricate any excuse as to why something should be removed, without bothering to spend any time to check whether the sources actually support the statements made.

Avatar317 (talk) 00:32, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

They are owned by the same company, so I would suggest it's a distinction without a difference. Regardless, my question to you would be, "who is Natalie Delgado and why should we care what she thinks about rent control?" The valuable information in that article is from the study, which should be cited directly for the opinions of its authors, if concluded those authors opinion's are DUE. Better yet, you should be finding a secondary academic source and using that to source whatever content is to be added. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:37, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Wait, I'm confused....Delgadillo, Natalie is simply the author of an article on Governing magazine, where she interviewed the author of a study on rent control in San Francisco named Rebecca Diamond and that comment I included was a comment from the researcher (Rebecca Diamond) to the author of the magazine article. Anyone who would read the linked article in Governing would realize that. Maybe I need to add more details to my quotes because people delete my additions without even checking this stuff?

Isn't a magazine article that interviews the author of a research paper a "secondary source" which is supposed to weigh in on how this matters to the public? I thought Wikipedia preferred secondary sources? Maybe I don't understand that quite right?

Here's the link to the article: http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-landlords-rent-control-stanford.html and here's the link to the study that caused the article and interview.

http://conference.nber.org/confer//2017/PEf17/Diamond_McQuade_Qian.pdf

Avatar317 (talk) 00:59, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Your edit did not make it at all clear whether that was directly from the study, it's author, or the author of the magazine article. Regardless, an interview is not a secondary source, it's a primary source. We of course prefer secondary sources, but ones written or at least published by relevant experts. If the study made a finding that you think is worth including in this article, then just cite the study directly. A broad review of the subject-matter by another economist would be preferable, but 2017 a little new for that - only eight other publications mention this one, and none are reviews. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Someguy1221. As far as I can determine, Natalie Delgadillo is a young adult who wrote for Governing magazine until a few months ago when she jumped over to the relaunch of the Gothamist-related website DCist. So she's a professional journalist by modern standards but not a particular specialist in rental housing. In any case, the main problem I had with the paragraph based on Delgadillo's article is that it was using non-neutral political language in Wikipedia's voice, advocating change rather than reporting on issues. If Avatar317 had used the Delgadillo piece to summarize issues neutrally for the reader then this kind of edit-warring friction would not have occurred. The basic problem is that Avatar317 is advocating for one side of a political issue, and is at odds with Wikipedia's policy WP:NOTHERE. Binksternet (talk) 01:17, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

And Binksternet is advocating for a different side without feeling like he has to provide sources or justifications for blocking someone else's edits. Just because something is published by a source you don't like or says something you don't agree with doesn't mean you should delete the entire entry. There is a tag for "dubious-discuss" and "citation needed" to show that you feel the info is not validly sourced. For the record, a whole lot of stuff in both the Rent regulation article and this one were (and still are) unsourced, but you didn't bother to delete those. And your recent edits are not witout bias either in what you chose to delete and what you didn't. Avatar317 (talk) 01:27, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not a political activist. The only reason I'm here on this talk page is because I spotted the non-neutral goings-on in the article and tried to mitigate them. You, however, display the editing pattern of a political activist, someone who is more interested in promoting a point of view than in helping to expand Wikipedia. Binksternet (talk) 02:04, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

So the text of mine which you fabricated a reason to delete: first that it came from Scientology (which doesn't automatically mean it is false) and now you CLAIM because it was non-neutral. Seems to me that any argument put into a section titled "Arguments against rent control - Moral" are inherently non-neutral. But they can be sourced by reliable sources, which this one is. If you didn't like it's non-neutrality, why didn't you edit the wording to make it more neutral? (Lots of other people do that.)--------- (Apparently I forgot to sign this) ----Avatar317 (talk) 05:12, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Reasons for rent control

Listed below are some sources talking about the reasons for, or arguments for, rent control. Binksternet (talk) 06:20, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 2018, by Dr. Stephen Barton, former director of housing in the City of Berkeley. "Why rent control is a good thing."

  Communities in the Bay Area need to protect tenants from rising rents and unfair evictions. The average rent in the Bay Area is double the average rent in the rest of the United States, creating a massive transfer of income from tenants to real estate investors. In the past five years,according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bay Area cost of living for everything except rent went up only 6 percent, but rents increased by 32 percent.... We know that stable communities are safer and healthier communities. Rent control is the only way to provide tenants with the stability our communities need right now — not thirty years from now, after construction of massive amounts of new housing that may or may not ever be built. Opponents of rent control admit that it helps tenants to stay in the community longer, but argue that “reduced mobility” is a bad thing, when really, it’s the whole point. Families need stability to do well at work and in school and maintain connections with relatives and friends.

• Mercury News, July 2018:

  “The most critical thing that rent control can do is drastically slow down displacement,” said Stephen Barton, former director of the City of Berkeley’s housing department and adviser on the campaign to repeal Costa Hawkins.

• Professor Emeritus Richard Walker, writing in the East Bay Express, March 2016: In the context of skyrocketing housing prices and the inadequate supply of housing units, Walker suggests radical financial changes to greatly reduce disparity between the rich and the poor. Failing that, he says that local controls will have to suffice.

  Rent control with reasonable annual increases works quite well to dampen overheated markets. Eviction controls are critical, along with other restrictions on speculation.

• East Bay Express, June 2016:

  "Rents are skyrocketing because more people with more money want to live near growing jobs in the Bay Area," Barton said in an interview. "But that value is not created by the landlords. It's created by the Bay Area's diverse and creative culture that has attracted people, and by governments that have created the infrastructure that makes the Bay Area work... "This has been a massive income transfer from tenants to landlords," Barton said. "It's deeply hurtful to low-income people."

• The Long Default: New York City and the Urban Fiscal Crisis, page 91, by William K. Tabb. NYU Press, 1982.

  As Stephen Barton has noted: "Rent control is a fundamental demand of any tenant movement because it is not simply an economic demand. It guarantees the tenants' rights to their homes by making eviction by rent increases impossible. Rent control, by creating a right to tenure, is essential to create neighborhood stability and to give people confidence that they will not be put out on the street if they protest. It provides the basis for the creation and strengthening of community social relations."

• "Scapegoating Rent Control: Masking the Causes of Homelessness", by Richard Appelbaum, Michael Dolny, Peter Dreier, John Gilderbloom. Journal of the American Planning Association, April 1991, 57 (2). A scholarly paper debunking the widely cited conclusion by journalist William Tucker in 1987/1989 that rent control causes homelessness. The scholars use Tucker's data evaluated anew without his methodological mistakes. Tucker's flawed research had been funded by libertarian and free-market think tanks such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute, and Tucker's writings on the topic appeared in many conservative publications, to show rent control as the scapegoat. The scholars conclude that rent control laws protect tenants from price gouging, and preserve affordable housing. "Rent controls... do not eliminate the profits necessary to encourage investment in private rental housing." And rent control does not cause homelessness.
• Margot A. Rosenberg (1988). "Commercial Rent Regulation: Preserving the Diversity of Neighborhood Commercial Districts", Ecology Law Quarterly, University of California, Berkeley.
• W. Dennis Keating (1985). "The Elmwood Experiment: the Use of Commercial Rent Stabilization to Preserve a Diverse Neighborhood Shopping District", Urban Law Journal. Describes how Berkeley established a more stable retail shopping district by enacting rent control on businesses.
• W. Dennis Keating (1998). Rent Control: Regulation and the Rental Housing Market, Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, ISBN 0882851594 An omnibus history of rent control in the US, with specific case studies from Berkeley, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York City, and some comparisons with the development of rent control policy in Toronto.
• Antonia Layard (2018). "Property and planning law in England: facilitating and countering gentrification", in Handbook of Gentrification Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018. The author argues that gentrification is caused by change, and that rent control/regulation/stabilization can help reduce this change and therefor slow gentrification. Examples from the US, UK, Germany, etc.
• Jacobin magazine, November 2017:

  But rent control is an essential tool for cities to regulate complex and ever-shifting housing markets, one that recognizes that property owners do not act in the interest of a good greater than their own, that the influx of capital to a neighborhood is not inherently beneficial, and that housing is not a simple commodity.

• Curbed SF, July 2018:

  The majority of the increase in workers in San Francisco has been driven by growth in workers earning more than $100,000 per year. However, workers earning less than $75,000 continue to be the majority... People of color are more likely to be housing cost burdened with more than 40 percent of Black, Asian/ Pacific Islander, and Latino renters cost burdened.

• "Searching for Stability Amid California’s Rent Crisis". "At a panel conversation held at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs on Feb. 26, 2018, a trio of experts discussed the housing crisis in the area and the potential for new rent control and eviction protections to help stabilize living situations in Los Angeles."
• San Francisco Examiner, June 2018: Tenants' rights attorney Dean Preston is quoted saying that the Costa-Hawkins legislation has been a major barrier in addressing the housing crisis. “The inability to have vacancy control in San Francisco is the single biggest reason that San Francisco has experienced such completely absurd runaway rents."

Reactions to the October 2017 Stanford paper "The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords and Inequality – Evidence from San Francisco"

• Mercury News, November 2017:

  But the takeaway shouldn’t be that rent control is the problem, argues Jennifer Fieber, political campaign director for the San Francisco Tenants Union, who says that rent caps are morally vital for cities. “The solution is to stop allowance of condo conversions or TIC (Tenancy In Common) conversions,” she said. “There’s a societal good in having rental property for the workforce here.”

• SF Gate, November 2017

  Anya Svanoe with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) says San Francisco's rent-control policies have been flawed from the start. Rent control itself is not the problem, she said, but a "loophole" in the San Francisco legislation that allows landlords to increase rent an unlimited amount whenever a master tenant moves. "Rent control is an immediate solution that will provide relief to families experiencing displacement today," she said. In the longterm, construction of affordable housing is essential for those most threatened by displacement.

• "Rent Control Works: A Response to Business School Professors’ Misguided Attacks", written by tenants rights activists Dean Preston and Shanti Singh of Tenants Together.

  The Stanford paper... is part hard data, part flawed methodology, and part misguided editorializing. While the data part documents the direct and substantial benefits of rent control in achieving its purposes, the balance of the paper uses flawed assumptions and conjecture to conclude that the direct, proven benefits of rent control are somehow negated by indirect effects. The result is a paper that is at best ill-informed and at worst flat-out biased.

Block quotes

I have not seen any policy that says "Blockquote template does not belong inside the quote parameter in the cite template."

I use blockquotes because I feel that it makes the quote more easily readable on mouse-over. It is actually more readable in the references as well. In this article, the only quotes that exist are blockquotes, so it isn't giving undue preference.

If you can point me to some wikipedia policy that says they should not be used, than I'll revert my own revert here, otherwise it is simply editor preference. ---- Avatar317 (talk) 05:17, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Any editing practice that promotes one side of a political issue is a violation of WP:NPOV. Binksternet (talk) 06:26, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

You asked me whether there were guidelines regarding the use of blockquotes, and this is what I found.

First, the blockquote HTML element is for quotes that are so large they contain more than one block (paragraph) of text. If the blockquote element is used to set a small quote apart from normal text, then it is being misused. That misuse has been deprecated in the web industry since before Wikipedia came along. See HTML_element#blockquote and Blockquote element.

Second, as you can see down in the reference section of your preferred version, any text inside blockquotes is smaller than normal reference text. The style guide MOS:SMALLFONT says we should "avoid" using smaller text inside infoboxes or reference sections.

Third, the style guide at Wikipedia:Quotations#Formatting says that we should work quotes smoothly into the article text to avoid clunky reading flow.

Finally, a foundational pillar of Wikipedia is the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy, which includes the relevant section WP:STRUCTURE. My reading of STRUCTURE with regard to your question is that the purposeful segregation of text based solely on the point of view expressed in that text – style formatting intended to favor one side in a debate – introduces non-neutral bias and must be removed.

Because of all of the above I hope you will stop using blockquotes. Binksternet (talk) 04:07, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

[Copied Binksternet's post on my talk page to here -the above text- because this is a better place for this discussion - where I originally started it.]

Including Lourdes because I had asked (and would like) an opinion from a more experienced editor/administrator to clear up this larger issue of blockquotes, not just on this specific article. (Sorry for asking on your talk page.) Also: pinging Dennis Bratland and Elfelix

I'm hoping other editors can clarify IF and what the policy is on using blockquotes both within an article, and in the citations sections for Wikipedia overall, because I have found nowhere other than the WP:UNDUE which seems to apply here.

My opinion is that blockquotes in citations are more readable on mouse-over than standard quotes (try and see what they look like), and my opinion is that Wikipedia's goal is to make use of the encyclopedia as optimum as possible for the reader, so I have used them in ALL of my citation quotes (except for when I have used the Template:R citation style. Again, anytime I use a quote from an article I always use the blockquote citation style. Any of my edits that don't have that style were done before I realized that I could use the blockquote element in a citation, and how much better it looked.

For background this now concerns the following three articles for which Binksternet removed ALL blockquotes in one edit with the following justifications (listed in chronological order):

• Costa–Hawkins Rental Housing Act - "Non-neutral use of blockquotes to set preferred quotes apart" - (11 pairs)
• Rent control in the United States - "Blockquote template does not belong inside the quote parameter in the cite template." - (2 pairs)
• California housing shortage - "removing strange formatting" - (27 pairs) - for the record, I wrote almost all of this article

Binksternet: firstly, thank you for discussing this with me. Here are my replies:

1) That "misuse" is your opinion. See this featured article: Definition_of_planet#Double_planets_and_moons where there is a one sentence blockquote.

2) Looking at the references for my preferred version which you linked, the text is NOT smaller, it is just indented on both sides. The served HTML code shows no font change. There is no tag to reduce the text size as you are claiming. Thus your argument here is invalid.

3) "Clunky reading flow" is a matter of opinion, and you made no effort in any of your mass blockquote removals to even mention that, or for which specific sets it would have applied.

4) I understand the non-neutral point, but removing ALL blockquotes from an article doesn't seem to be justified by this.

In each of the three articles we are talking about, you have simply removed ALL blockquotes, (both in the citations, and the articles).

In Costa-Hawkins, for example, one of those ARTICLE blockquotes was Gov. Brown's veto message. My opinion is that something that important would be nice to be emphasized by blockquote, even though that blockquote set was NOT put there by me. None of the blockquotes in that article's text were added by me.

I'm not opposed to removing some blockquotes, if you can point to why each one(s) modify the point of view, but I think it is ridiculous to not use that format ANYWHERE. Again, for comparison, the Definition_of_planet (a featured article) makes use of quite many blockquotes, though none in the references section.

Again, I'm hoping other editors can clarify IF and what the policy is on using blockquotes both within an article, and in the citations sections for Wikipedia overall, because I have found nowhere other than the WP:UNDUE which mildly appears to apply here. Thanks for your input, everyone! --Avatar317 (talk) 19:24, 26 August 2018 (UTC)Avatar317

Screenshot of reference section. Example text in citation title above, with example quote below, the quote having been placed inside the HTML blockquote element. No other formatting has been applied to the fonts except with the normal markup of cite quote and blockquote.

1: I said that blockquotes used for smaller quotes is a misuse, a conclusion which is found in the documentation for HTML 4.0, written well before Wikipedia was invented. The correct action to take is remove small quotes wherever they appear on Wikipedia, and work them into the text as appropriate. If you give an example of a small blockquote, somebody ought to go to that article and fix it.

2: As you can in the screenshot to the right, the blockquote "example" text placed inside the quote parameter of the citation template is smaller than the normal text of the citation title. The screenshot is from my PC running Windows 7, displayed in the Firefox browser. If your computer isn't showing smaller text in the reference section blockquotes, then this will prove that it is a problem on my machine, and most likely on many other machines.

3: My "clunky reading flow" is upheld by Wikipedia:Quotations#Formatting which says, "Quotations should generally be worked into the article text, so as not to inhibit the pace, flow and organization of the article."

4: If the blockquote template has been used non-neutrally in ALL the article, then removing ALL blockquotes is appropriate. Since your contributions on Wikipedia show the hand of a political activist, I have concluded that you are not here to build the encyclopedia, but to build support for your political argument. As such, I don't think you ought to be deciding what is and what is not neutral style formatting in political articles. Binksternet (talk) 20:55, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Change "pro-RC" and "anti-RC" sections

These should be changed into two sections: "The politics of rent control" and "Impact of rent control". Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:06, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree, the Pro-Con is not encyclopedic. ---Avatar317^(talk) 04:53, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Notification: Housing in the United States

A request has been submitted to WikiProject United States for a new article to be created on the topic of Housing in the United States. Please join the discussion or consider contributing to the new article. Best regards, -- M2545 (talk) 08:25, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to US Housing Edit-a-thon

Please join us on 13 December 2020, 12:00-14:00 EST, as we update and improve articles in Wikipedia related to housing in the United States of America. Sign up here. -- M2545 (talk) 09:18, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Fix footnotes

The footnotes look weird and they clunk up the page. Just mentioning it here if someone is willing to undertake the time-consuming effort to fix them. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:18, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean specifically by: "look weird and they clunk up the page"? Some of the ones that use the R template designate a page number after the reference (usually 1, if it is a web page) and then give a quote on mouse-over of the page number. The R template is the only way that I know of to use different quotes from the same source to back up different statements withOUT duplicating the reference itself. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:07, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

The footnotes take up twice the space they usually would. They are also impossible to read and edit simply in 'edit source'. They are also extremely confusing to read, as each footnote is followed by : and a number. There's also frequently space between the footnotes and the actual space, leading to actual readability issues. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree they are ugly, but I think Wikipedia's primary goal is to have an informative (rather than pretty) encyclopedia, and as I said above, I don't know of any other way to use a reference multiple times with DIFFERENT quotes for each statement withOUT the bracket-bracket-colon-pagenumber format....do you know of any?

I can fix the extra spaces in the displayed text by removing spaces, but I often have put each reference on its own line in the wiki-text; this makes the wikitext more readable but puts a blank space between EACH reference. What do you suggest? ---Avatar317^(talk) 05:41, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

A Philosophical Reminder

Civility is the fourth pillar of Wikipedia. One aspect of civility is the ability to refrain from saying that the opinions of other editors are ridiculous -- even when one thinks that the opinion of another editor is ridiculous. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I would also like to add that another philosophical principle is the search for truth. We assume good faith on all sides and hope that reason will triumph over ideology. 193.52.24.13 (talk) 10:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Assuming any who don't agree with you are editing their ideology- or POV.... is not assuming good faith. Nightenbelle (talk) 12:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

It's not that anyone who doesn't think like me has an ideological bias. This is about the fact that there are statements that are false. There is no consensus among economists, that's obvious. Otherwise all studies would say the same thing. However, the sentence is still in the second line of the article, poorly referenced, and supposedly based on the result of an opinion-based survey (not peer-reviewed, by the way).193.52.24.13 (talk) 14:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

You keep repeating that this is a single opinion poll, while ignoring the other sources, for example the (peer-reviewed) paper in Econ Journal Watch. This kind of straw man argument isn't likely to convince other editors to take your side. MrOllie (talk) 14:34, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The article you mention does not imply that there is a consensus among economists. You know that. I am not ignoring anything. On the contrary, whoever says there is a consensus is ignoring conter-arguments, scientific papers pointing in other directions, other opinions, and other countries or cities that have economists implementing these measures. The statement is FALSE and you know it.193.52.24.13 (talk) 14:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

You're right, it does not 'imply' that there is a consensus, it directly states it. Quote: "As Navarro (1985) notes, 'the economics profession has reached a rare consensus: Rent control creates many more problems than it solves'" MrOllie (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

There is not a consensus. That's a Navarro's statement in 1985. what that has to do with the scientific evidence? There are counter-arguments, economists that do not claim such thing and economists working in cities such as NY, Berlin or Paris arguing in an opposite direction. If the statement is not true, just delete it. 193.52.24.13 (talk) 14:52, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Navarro stated it in 1985 and Jenkins reaffirms that it is still true. On one side we have reliable sources, and on the other side we have you, saying (with no sources at all!) that it is 'not true'. That isn't how Wikipedia works. MrOllie (talk) 15:01, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Can you share your Jenkins article? Here I share some counter-arguments: In 2019, a study developed by researchers of the University of British Columbia, shows that expansion of rent control and traditional housing policies leads to greater access to affordable housing and increases well-being. This model was calibrated to the New York metropolitan area. Now another recent mathematical model shows that well-designed rent control may help policymakers to stabilize housing market dynamics, even without creating housing market distortions. Now, do you want me to continue compiling the opinion of economists who don't think like Navarro, or do you prefer to keep a sentence that is false in the free encyclopaedia?193.52.24.13 (talk) 15:13, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Earlier you stated 'The article you mention does not imply that there is a consensus among economists.' and now you're asking me to share a copy of it? Didn't you read it before you made a definitive claim about its contents? Compiling the opinions of individual economists is original reserarch, and just anecdotal, it isn't data. If you want to impeach a source that flatly says that there is a consensus, you would need another source that explicitly states something like 'there is no consensus'. - MrOllie (talk) 15:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Up to you. I asked you to share it for public debate. Although the simple fact of observing that there are economists who do not think as you do (or who counter-argue) should be enough to show that there is no consensus and withdraw the phrase. The claim that there is a consensus among economists, I reiterate, is absolutely false.193.52.24.13 (talk) 15:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Please don't dodge the question. Did you read the article before you made a (false) claim about its contents? MrOllie (talk) 15:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

You accused me of having no sources and I attached some. I think the only one trying to avoid the real issue is you, or whoever claims that sentence is true. The claim is obviously false, and you know it. I've already explained it. Just because there are studies against rent control (which there are), or just because the conclusion of some economists is that, doesn't mean that all economists agree. Sorry, but there is no consensus, nor is our knowledge of the complexity of rent control sufficient to make such claims. You, you can think, at a particular level, whatever you want, of course. But that statement is false.193.52.24.13 (talk) 15:40, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Even if the absolute truth rested with a single paper and a single author (Blair Jenkins ?), the statement would still be false. In the conclusions of that paper (incidentally with an impact factor of 0.920 (2010), i.e., in colloquial terms, "bad journal"), Jenkins states that there are 23% of economists who either "agree with provisions" or directly "disagree" with the claim that "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available". Is this a consensus? NO. Even if the truth resided in that paper, the phrase would still be false. But it is worse. The paper is in a journal to which one must be sceptical. In short, I reiterate, the statement in question is false and I think it should be removed.193.52.24.13 (talk) 16:34, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

On "consensus among economists"

This article is a descriptive article on rent price control, which is an economic technique.

In the second sentence of this article, even before technically describing the rent control system, there is a sentence of appreciative connotation: "There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing".

This sentence should be deleted for the following reasons:

1. It is false that there is a consensus among economists.

2. The sentence purports to reflect the result of an opinion poll among a very limited number of economists. This opinion survey has neither been published in peer-reviewed impact journals, nor does it have scientific rigour.

3. Moreover, to make matters worse, the sentence does not even reflect what the opinion poll says.

4. Furthermore, the sentence duplicates information that appears further down in the article in the impact section, where the "biased survey" is already cited.

5. It is not encyclopaedically acceptable to use statements with subjective or political connotations before the technical description.

For all these reasons, I conclude that the above sentence has an ideological intent and should be removed. 193.52.24.13 (talk) 12:12, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

This sentence in the lead summarizes material down in the 'Impact' section of the article, which includes several sources, including a Nobel Laureate. It is not supported by a single 'opinion poll' as you describe here. It is the job of the lead section to repeat material from the article body, see MOS:LEAD. Also, you've just gotten back from a block for edit warring about this sentence. If you continue to edit war about this, you will almost certainly be blocked again, and for longer this time. - MrOllie (talk) 12:53, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I reiterate each and every one of the above points. Your answer refutes nothing.193.52.24.13 (talk) 19:10, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

You need to get consensus for your edits, no amount of edit warring will keep your preferred version in the article over the objection of multiple other editors. A total non-answer such as the above isn't going to be very effective at reaching a consensus. - MrOllie (talk) 19:26, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

It is obvious that the total non-answer is yours. You have not refuted any of the points I have made. 193.52.24.13 (talk) 19:32, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Economists agreeing about something is interesting but not definitive. Economists don't have any system of certification to make sure they understand their field of study, and they don't have a system of de-certification for repeatedly being wrong. We should summarize for the reader the findings of economists but they are not the end-all and be-all of this topic.

This topic must represent the hundreds of thousands of people who benefit from rental housing price controls, and not just the real estate developer's viewpoint. Binksternet (talk) 19:33, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Binksternet, I'm confused by your position. Previously you readded the sentence under discussion to the lead, and now you've just removed it. - MrOllie (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I do not find it confusing. I think it is just common sense. For God's sake, let's be rigorous: how can you sustain such a statement as the second sentence of this encyclopaedic article? 193.52.24.13 (talk) 19:51, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

The lead section summarizes the content of the article. That sentence is a fair summary of the content of the impact section. Since the impact section is about 1/3 of the article, we do have to summarize it in the lead. - MrOllie (talk) 20:00, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, @Snooganssnoogans: was the one who added this to the lead, so they might want to have a say in this also. I agree with MrOllie and support having that summary of the Impact Section in the lead. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:40, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

The lead section contains a sentence that is FALSE and misleading. Honestly, I find no possible explanation from any non-ideological point of view for keeping such a statement in the article. Not a single point of what I say has been refuted, and the encyclopaedic article contains a sentence at the beginning talking about a consensus that does not exist and that responds to a survey and a few economists' opinions. Unbelievable.193.52.24.13 (talk) 09:51, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay... since this got brought to my talk page for reasons I fail to understand- I'm going to see what I can do here. There is a lot of arguing back and forth here, and we have a process for this. Rather than casting aspirations and flirting with personal attacks- try to comment on content only. And take your emotions out of it. Don't call another editor's suggestions or contributions "ridiculous" or assume that your opinion is "obvious." If it were obvious to all involved- we wouldn't be having this discussion. Instead- propose what change you want made to the article here- on the talk page, before changing the article itself. Yes- I am saying leave the article alone as it is now until you have consensus. I realize that one party doesn't think the current state is acceptable- I'm not suggesting you leave it there forever- just stop edit warring until you can agree on a change. So make your suggestions- specific, supported by WP:RS suggestions. Then the other side can comment and offer a counter-proposal. This goes back and forth until a compromise is reached. If, after at least a week's discussion you still can't agree on a compromise- open a WP:RFC get some other eyes in here. if that is inconclusive THEN come back to the DRN and see if a mediator can help. But this- what's going on above- unhelpful and not going to solve anything. Contested change is not a fast process on WP. If you can't handle an extended discussion without getting rude- this isn't the place for you. If you can't collaborate with people who don't agree with you- this isn't the right place for you. And if you can't express your opinions without insulting others- this isn't the right place for you. Now, I'm going to walk away and lurk again until/unless this returns to the DRN. Best of luck to you all. Nightenbelle (talk) 20:32, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your interest in the debate. However, I believe that the premises from which you start are incorrect. I believe that the sentence that should achieve sufficient consensus (among scientists) to appear in the article is the sentence in question:"There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing". As I have explained above, this statement is obviously false, since there are economists who do not think so. And there are at least five other reasons that I have already explained above that make me doubt the neutrality of this statement (and the article in general). Would we remove from wikipedia a sentence like "there is a consensus among politicians that social democracy is good"? Without hesitation, because it is a sentence that is obviously false. There is no consensus, and evidence of such a consensus, if it exists, should go beyond opinion polls and one-liners (even if they are Nobel laureates). To make matters worse, the phrase appears in the second line of the article. To summarise, there are issues that can be agreed between wikipedia editors in order to reach a common ground. But the issues that are open to debate are those that are likely to be true. In other words, reaching consensus with earth-planners means having an assertion that "the earth is flat".193.52.24.13 (talk) 10:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

BTW. (Nightenbelle) Are you accusing me of insulting other users on the article's talk page. If so, can you retract your words or specify exactly where I have insulted? Cheers 193.52.24.13 (talk) 11:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I won't be striking anything- You insulted your fellow editors when you called your argument "obvious" twice now- its not obvious or they wouldn't be disagreeing with you. You just did it above. And comparing them to flat-earth conspiracy theorists. I simply came here to offer advice if you honestly wanted improvement in the article. But since you are bound and determined to be combative. I'm walking away now and just leave some light reading for those still engaged with you WP:NOTHERE Nightenbelle (talk) 12:28, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Also- I never actually specified who I thought was being insulting. Guilty conscious there IP user? Or are you just fully aware of how you are coming across but don't care? Nightenbelle (talk) 12:40, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

So you say first: "You insulted your fellow editors when you called your argument obvious", and a few lines further down you say: "I never actually specified who I thought was being insulting". It is not clear to me then what you mean. What is clear to me is that the second sentence of this article is obviously false. There is NO consensus among economists, and if there ever was, it would not be based on an opinion poll.193.52.24.13 (talk) 14:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Nightenbelle MrOllie Binksternet Time passes and the error remains on the page. I think it's time to remove the sentence from the article or, if necessary, to raise the dispute again to the dispute resolution noticeboard. Incidentally, the same erroneous statement about the alleged consensus also appears on the general page about Rent Control [4]. It seems that someone had a great time quoting the lax article by Jenkins at EJW journal (0.920 impact factor). Is she a recognised economist or has she written anything else? I'm afraid the answer is a resounding no. By the way, Jenkins states that there are 23% of economists who either "agree with provisions" or directly "disagree" with the claim that "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available". Whoever had a fun time editing these articles on rent control has also been duplicating information and using both an opinion poll and a report by a self-declared "liberal" think tank [5]. Of course, not a trace of other articles I have already quoted in this discussion or other dissenting opinions. If we still do not consider this to be a blatant case of a lack of neutrality, what is the world coming to? Regards.193.52.24.13 (talk) 20:34, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Mon cher ami from Paris, I am sympathetic to your cause here, to argue for some text saying that rent control isn't completely idiotic, loved as it is by many who benefit, and voted affirmatively by so many voters. But it is absolutely true that the great majority of economists are in agreement that rent control is bad. It's my opinion that they are not looking at enough factors, that they are not giving a high value to neighborhood stability, but too bad for me, because it doesn't change their conclusions, stated in many different articles, books, papers, etc. Rather than fight the windmills like Don Quixote, you should concentrate on locating the writers who support rent control for whatever reason. Binksternet (talk) 21:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

There has been no discussion for a week. You just stopped talking about it and now you want to go to the DRN? Thats not how it works. You have to give a real, good faith effort to find a compromise- not WP:BLUDGEON a page until someone reports your bad behavior, get quiet for a week, and resume WP:BLUDGEON. Either discuss, compromise, and stop WP:BATTLEGROUND, or find a WP:RS other than just repeating your opinion over and over and over. again- I'm not saying you're wrong- I'm saying you are not convincing anyone with your attitude. Nightenbelle (talk) 14:02, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Binksternet Thanks for your comment. However, I think that we should not mix things up. There are three different problems and each has a different solution. Let me explain it again:

1. Topic 1: on the veracity of the sentence "There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing". The sources used to support this claim are:

a) An article by Blair Jenkins (of whom we do not know if she has a PhD in economics), who has no other publications on this subject and whose article is published in a journal of dubious quality (impact factor 0.920). Furthermore, the article argues that 23% of economists either "agree with provisions"(16.6%) or directly "disagree" (6.5%) with the claim that "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available". Is this a consensus? No. Is it a reproducible and sufficiently consistent article that it can stand alone to make such a claim? No. Is the publisher neutral? No. The Journal Econ Journal Watch [6] is published by a self-declared "conservative" and "libertarian" think tank called Fraser Institute [7].

b) An opinion survey without peer review and isolated interviews. I think it is not necessary to comment on whether this represents a representative sample in order to support such a statement.

c) One report by another self-declared "liberal" think tank [8].

Given these sources it is clear that we can no longer support this sentence in the article and that this article has a clear ideological bias. My position is that the sentence should be removed. If the sentence is to be retained, then for the sake of truth, we should say something like this: "According to one study published by a libertarian think tank, most economists agree that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available", while 23% of economists have reservations or disagree with the claim".

2. Topic 2: on the position of the statement in the article. Notwithstanding that the statement is erroneous, is it encyclopaedically appropriate for that phrase to appear as the second entry in the article? I think that here again we are faced with an attempt to promote one kind of view on the rent control mechanism. I think that for the sake of objectivity, one should first explain technically what rent control is and then move on to the assessments that economists, sociologists, and other scientists or sectors of society have to make.

3. Topic 3. Finally, as stated by Binksternet, we should concentrate on locating the writers who support rent control for other reasons (but it should be noted that this is independent of the previous two points, which stand on their own). In this thread I have already added some references. But I can certainly update the article with more. [9], [10], [11], [12].

193.52.24.13 (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

This discussion was continued on Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard [13] 193.52.24.13 (talk) 21:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

No real consensus has emerged there. It may be time to consider holding an RFC to put this to bed one way or the other. MrOllie (talk) 13:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

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Modifier on Cato

There was no need to call the Cato Institute "libertarian/conservative" if the other proponents/critics do not also have such modifiers (e.g. Paul Krugman). I think it's enough to identify it as "anti-rent control". Besides, calling a libertarian institute like Cato "conservative" is really not completely accurate.