Newsgroups: can.politics
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!db.toronto.edu!jdd
From: jdd@db.toronto.edu ("John D. DiMarco")
Subject: Re: rent review
Message-ID: <1988Mar4.134026.18426@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <1988Feb24.140628.28040@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1433@looking.UUCP> <1988Feb26.225840.21116@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1437@looking.UUCP> <1988Feb28.002014.29461@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1443@looking.UUCP> <1988Feb29.173313.13345@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <306@brambo.UUCP>
Distribution: ont
Date: Fri, 4-Mar-88 13:40:25 EST

In article <306@brambo.UUCP> morgan@brambo.UUCP (Morgan W. Jones) writes:
>In article <1988Feb29.173313.13345@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> jdd@db.toronto.edu ("John D. DiMarco") writes:
>> You seem to be avocating 
>>abolishing rent control. How will that prevent the prices of units now
>>under rent control from increasing dramatically?
>It won't.  But the whole problem stems from the fact that rent
>controlled housing is dramatically, and artificially, underpriced.
The general idea of rent control IS to keep prices lower than they otherwise
would be (as you put it, underpriced). Otherwise many people can't afford
to live in Toronto.

>>And rent controls? Toronto with rent controls is much more affordable for
>>middle class people.... if you can find a place to live. Toronto without
>>rent controls would be much more expensive (New York is a good example).
>>The best alternative in my opinion is Toronto with increased gov't housing.
>>If there is sufficient moderate-income housing, rent control will not be
>>necessary.
>I question the analogy with New York.  True, housing is VERY expensive
>in N.Y., but N.Y. is a very different bird than T.O.  Even in N.Y.,
>housing is only expensive in high profile areas such as Manhattan, and
>this is because N.Y. is THE place for people with money to live.  T.O.
>does not have this problem.
In my New York analogy, I was thinking of Manhattan. Correction accepted.
But there is a high demand for both Toronto and Manhattan housing, (for possibly
different reasons). But in Manhattan, rent control doesn't exist - hence
housing prices are astronomical. Toronto would be expensive as well, if
there were no rent controls, because there is a high demand for Toronto 
housing.

>If rent controls were removed, new rental housing would not cater to
>expensive tastes, because that is profitable now.  What it would mean
>is that developers would know that they could build affordable housing
>where they could raise the price if economic conditions were
>to change.
You mean that developers could build affordable housing, and then make it
unaffordable? I hardly see this as desirable.

>Morgan Jones - Bramalea Software Inc.        morgan@brambo.UUCP

John

-- 
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    John DiMarco           Hard work never killed a man ...
jdd@csri.toronto.edu          ... but it sure has scared lots of them! 
{uunet!utai,watmath!utai,decvax,decwrl,ihnp4}!utcsri!jdd      jdd@utcsri.UUCP
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