(2003-02-04) William Tucker Nyc Rent Control

William Tucker on NYC Rent Control. In 1942, with vacancies at 6 percent, the Real Estate Board of New York voluntarily pledged to forego rent increases in keeping with the wartime effort. New York was now the only major city in the nation without rent control... And so controls arrived as a temporary wartime measure... Though national price controls were lifted in 1947 - setting off the postwar boom - New York City activists succeeded in persuading the state Legislature to extend rent controls indefinitely... Boston finally ended its 25-year nightmare with rent controls by repealing them through popular Referen Dum in 1997.