"The impact on the lucky few living in rent-controlled apartments is that, regardless of who owns the property, maintenance cost still exceeds the revenue generated by the rent. So even under city or non-profit stewardship, the situation remains the same. The building deteriorates and nothing gets fixed.
A primary example is the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the city’s own public housing system, which, according to Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, had over 600,000 unanswered work orders at the time Mamdani announced his crackdown on private landlords.
At the same time that rents are skyrocketing in other apartments and conditions are deteriorating in rent-controlled apartments, developers are hesitant to build new apartments for fear that they will eventually be co-opted by the city. Additionally, city regulations require developers to include a certain percentage of “affordable” units, which eat into profits and force them to rent to tenants they otherwise would have rejected.
The solution, of course, is to confiscate more properties and operate them at a loss while increasing taxes on those who work. New York has already experienced an exodus of high-earning residents along with a decline in overall construction activity. That pattern will continue, with fewer taxpayers supporting larger swaths of the population living in deteriorating slums. Mamdani may finally have figured out how to kill the city that never sleeps."
