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Rent control was established during WWII to prevent landlords from gouging workers who came to NY to support the war effort, such as working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Since rent control was established, there has been a housing emergency, which is described as a vacancy rate of less than 5%.

There are many things wrong with rent control.

1. It's not socialism in that it's not based on ability to pay, it's based on that you were lucky. If it was based on ability to pay, it would be somewhat more palatable.

2. It locks people into a paticular apartment. There are plenty of elderly who would give up their $400 3 bedroom apts for a smaller one, but if they do their rent would increase. So they stay, and waste space.

It's not socialism in that it's not based on ability to pay, it's based on that you were lucky. If it was based on ability to pay, it would be somewhat more palatable.

Well, except that it is. It's an attempt to keep all rent within everyone's "ability to pay" - it's not individually tailored to your particular income, but the idea is that it keeps housing within any given person's particular means. It's socialism the same way that any price ceiling is socialism - you gave the reason it came about yourself. It was instituted to keep the greedy capitalist exploiters from expropriating the wages of the proletariat. Well, not in so many words, but that's what it boils down to.

And it has the same effect as price ceilings have in all other markets - when you artificially cap prices, you artificially restrict supply. In the short term, prices are kept down, but in the long term, the problem is never fixed because there's no incentive to build new property and increase supply.