I'm working on writing up my findings, hopefully for publication, but the initial finding is that there is no difference on a percent of income basis between Rent Stabilized and market-rate. Translation: Rent Stabilized apartments are just as available to people (when looked at in NYC as a whole) as market-rate apartments, it's just that poorer people are more likely to live in Rent Stabilized apartments.

Rent Control, on the other hand is shrinking fast. There are only 40,000 some apartments left in the program (down from 52,000 in 1999). There seem to be only about 10,000-20,000 people in Rent Controlled apartments that are getting a much better deal that the rest of the market. It's really not much to worry about in a market with 2 million rental units and another 1 million owner-occupied units.

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I am glad my comment on rent laws drew such interesting responses. I believe that there is a high percentage of apartments occupied by non-workers that are not available to Manhatan-based workers. There are around 200,000 rent regulated apartments in Manhattan and if 25% are occupied by retirees, then you can see the impact on prices on the non-regulated apartments and how many less commuters there would be if the non-workers relocated.

50,000 apartments is a lot of housing close to work that is off the market.

--Jeffrey Gold, VP/Director
Institute for Rational Urban Mobility

Speaking as a rent-stabilized tenant: I don't a car, and my writing job has me working at home. So forcing me out of the city won't remove any cars. And my proximity to my job couldn't be any smaller -- I commute from my bedroom to my livingroom. And I'm not rich. My income is 45k.

I read the linked article, which states in part: "Any artificial control tightens supply and increases rents." The facts suggest otherwise. Vacancy decontrol turns more and more rent-stabilized units into market-rate units every year -- and still rents continue to rise.

Here's an article which explains why pissy old True Story is right

Except it doesn't. It's not enough to show bad consequences of a policy; you need to show that eliminating that policy would create more benefit than detriment.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3601/is_43_50/ai_n6149678
Let our rent rates go: why rent control should stop
Real Estate Weekly, June 2, 2004 by Adelaide Ponsinelli

Comment #20 brings up another problem. There are too many people posting here as Mark. So from now on I'm Mark Walker -- Mark because it's my real name, and Walker because walking is what makes me interested in Streetsblog. That and public transit. But Mark Public Transit doesn't have such a nice ring.

I wish the other Mark(s) well and would never question their right to air their views. I just need to present a consistent persona.

I'm glad that rent stabilization allowed my dad to live the rest of his life in the community he chose as his home, above a supermarket and near two subway stations, instead of being shipped off to the boonies where he would have been marooned without a car. That allowed him to be closer to me and to his grandson than would have been possible any other way, and it allowed me to take care of him in his old age, in a way that I won't be able to do with my mom.

I don't want to live in a frathouse, and I don't want to live in a neighborhood where everyone has young children. I like having older people around. Many of my older neighbors keep an eye on the street and take an interest in civic affairs. Sure, sometimes they can be cranky about parking, but the neighborhood would be greatly diminished without them - and their lives would be greatly diminished if they were stuck in some "retirement community" in Wappingers Falls or Boca Raton.

How about eliminting Rent Control & Rent Stabilization so people who are not working and cannot afford Manhattan will move out to permit those with JOBS live close to WORK.

There will be less commuting and less traffic if the retirees move to Dutchess and Orange County so middle-class people that WORK in Manhattan can move close to their JOB.

The Rent Control & Rent Stbilization chickens have come home to roost. Sty Town & Peter Cooper Village (aka Century Village-Manhattan)

This line of thinking is limited when democracy is limited. And in the case of the State Legislature, democracy is indeed limited. In the five NYC elections I've voted in, I don't remember ever having a meaningful choice for either Senate or Assembly - even when the incumbent senator was a Republican.

Elections are there for a reason. If there's no primary or general election challenger for a candidate, and the choice of candidate is made in the clubhouses, then everyone who's not involved in clubhouse politics is disenfranchised.

I would happily have voted for an alternative to the candidates on the ballot, and I think a lot of my neighbors would have as well - given the choice. But we weren't given the choice, so we don't deserve the blame. Certainly not all of it.

Few contributors have been willing to criticize the mayor's leadership. But those colleagues I've talked to who were deep in the battle suggest that, aside from the fact that he proposed congestion pricing in the first place, Mayor Bloomberg's leadership was severely flawed, if not a disaster.

Is the mayor the reason congestion pricing failed? Let's put it this way: a leader who didn't so dramatically misread the legislature might have done far better. I think we're putting blinders on if we don't acknowledge that the general in this battle didn't understand the battlefield. (I guess it's a bit It turned out that dealing with the legislature was a bit harder when it wasn't the City Council.

Is he the only reason it didn't move forward? No way: many of the legislators were pre-disposed to believe the crap that the anti-congestion pricing spinners were putting out. Of course they are to blame.

And others played a role: an unhelpful MTA, for instance.

But to suggest that folks like my legislator, Danny O'Donnell, couldn't have been swayed by a little smarter politics at City Hall is a mistake. And if we don't realize that, we'll just keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Another mistake would be to devote a huge amount of time to trying to pick off legislators because we don't think they were persuasive enough in a closed conference (and I'm no fan of the particular legislator in question, by the way). That doesn't mean that there aren't legislators worth running against, just that it's hardly the kind of battle I think should be a focus.

It's possible, by the way, that the argument about who deserves blame is, for the moment, irrelevant. While there is a dramatic need for more transit funding, it won't be coming in this round, at least, from congestion pricing.

How about Gottfried send our a transcript of what he said in the secret/behind closed doors meeting? How can we just his pursuasiveness if we don't really even know what he said to his colleagues.

In general, I think these efforts to pin the blame on the mayor's personality and style are, for the most part, a misdirection and baloney.

Pricing was killed in a closed door Democratic party conference meeting in the State Assembly. If you're looking to blame someone for its death, the killers are to be found in that room.

The response from Gottfried's aide shows that this official can be responsive. I'm disappointed by the analysis so far on Streetsblog -- there's a basic denial that congestion pricing just didn't capture the public's attention in the way that we would have hoped, and also found tough going in the legislature, in part because of our allies.

As I've said on different threads here, there's no reason not to be annoyed a (mostly) know-nothing legislature. But it's foolish to claim that a mayor who still thinks he's running his own business didn't have something to do with the failure of congestion pricing.

The first version of this blog post was just oriented a bit too much as a critique of Gottfried. Aside from the fact that he was generally supportive of pricing and he's been in the Assembly for as long as I've been alive, Streetsblog doesn't really know enough about Gottfried to criticize him. We edited it to focus on the novel approach to recruiting a candidate -- Craiglist rather than the old political club.

I tried to tell you this via e-mail but the address you gave didn't work.

Would that we were so powerful as to be leaned on by a state legislator.