This is a great article. It's absolutely true that "villians are easier than solutions." But I also wonder whether naming villians -- not to divide or even to blame, but to gather receipts and identify where the bottlenecks really are (and who benefits most from them) -- is a necessary step on the way to solutions. (Worth noting that the "villians" used in the article's examples weren't the right ones... so not an effective strategy regardless and the article's points all stand!)
Even if they aren’t the correct villain here — despite being generally villainous — there still IS a genuine problem with recent-construction rents being kept high by absurdly (nigh-fraudulently!) speculative financing covenants’ rent floors, which is propped up by large commercial landlords invisibly keeping units off markets through various shenanigans to inflate their reported occupancy rates.
As usual, the left-NIMBY types you’re skewering here are so blinded by their hatred for traditional Boomer boogeymen, they have no idea this is even a problem.
But the “extend and pretend” financing that undergirds this foolishness is a problem for YIMBYs too, not merely a defense against NIMBY complaints, because it blunts the effectiveness of any YIMBY policy wins we accumulate.
Just because Matt Stoller is a wierdo obsessive pinning webs of red strings to the wall, doesn’t mean we should exonerate corporate landlords from any suspicion.
Great article and agreed
This is a great article. It's absolutely true that "villians are easier than solutions." But I also wonder whether naming villians -- not to divide or even to blame, but to gather receipts and identify where the bottlenecks really are (and who benefits most from them) -- is a necessary step on the way to solutions. (Worth noting that the "villians" used in the article's examples weren't the right ones... so not an effective strategy regardless and the article's points all stand!)
One point of contention RE RealPage…
Even if they aren’t the correct villain here — despite being generally villainous — there still IS a genuine problem with recent-construction rents being kept high by absurdly (nigh-fraudulently!) speculative financing covenants’ rent floors, which is propped up by large commercial landlords invisibly keeping units off markets through various shenanigans to inflate their reported occupancy rates.
As usual, the left-NIMBY types you’re skewering here are so blinded by their hatred for traditional Boomer boogeymen, they have no idea this is even a problem.
But the “extend and pretend” financing that undergirds this foolishness is a problem for YIMBYs too, not merely a defense against NIMBY complaints, because it blunts the effectiveness of any YIMBY policy wins we accumulate.
Just because Matt Stoller is a wierdo obsessive pinning webs of red strings to the wall, doesn’t mean we should exonerate corporate landlords from any suspicion.
Banning cartels of NIMBY landlords is good