In New York’s large suite of self-destructive public policies, it’s hard to choose which one is the very worst. But an excellent candidate is the regime for regulation of residential rents, mostly going by the name of Rent Stabilization.

Because of rent regulation, New York’s rental housing stock is older, more outdated, and less well-maintained than the housing of any other American city. If you got yourself into one of the regulated apartments a few decades ago, you likely enjoy a significant bargain on your monthly rent versus comparable space, to go along with your 30- or 40-year old kitchen and bathroom fixtures and appliances, and insufficient electricity to run a toaster and a hair-dryer at the same time. Try to upgrade to something a little more up-to-date and you will find that your rent will triple, so you are locked in to this one apartment for life. Meanwhile, kids just out of school who have gotten an entry-level job in New York and try to break into the rental market find that they face the highest rental prices in the country. In other words, it’s the progressive vision of perfect justice and fairness for all.

Another effect of the regulation regime has been to seriously degrade the value of the buildings and apartments subject to the rules. So you might ask, if the price control regime takes away all or most of the value of a property, doesn’t this at some point become a “taking” under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, giving the property owners the right to seek “just compensation” from the state for the loss of value?

I often write about the folly of attempting, through a myriad of government mandates and subsidies, to compel the replacement of our electricity system with one powered by the wind and sun. You may think it would be impossible to come up with any public policy that is worse than that one of a forced energy system transformation.

And yet, the Manhattan Contrarian designee for “worst possible public policy” has gone to something else. That something else is the building of what they call “affordable housing” on some of the world’s most expensive real estate here in Manhattan.

The term “affordable housing” as used by housing advocates is a euphemistic term of art that means something different from what you would think. What it really means is subsidized and income restricted.

The policies of forced energy transition and of building “affordable housing” in Manhattan share some notable characteristics. One is that a few simple observations are sufficient to demonstrate that the policy wastes vasts amounts of taxpayer resources while accomplishing essentially nothing and indeed being destructive. Another is that there is near total consensus among the Manhattan cognoscenti that the policy is a not only good idea but indeed a moral imperative.

Over the years I have returned repeatedly to the subject of the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA.

Begun with great optimism prior to World War II, NYCHA expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 70s, until it housed around 500,000 people. The economic model was always pure unmodified socialism — the government owns everything, rents are tied to income (“to each according to his needs”), and any shortfalls in paying costs fall on the taxpayers. But after all, we will save oodles of money because there will be no profits for the evil developers. For a few of my prior posts, see here, here and here

The socialist economic model always lacked any mechanism to renew the capital investment in the buildings as they aged. After 2000, buildings were turning 30, 40 and even 50 years old.

Beginning in the 2010s, NYCHA started regularly announcing large sums of money that it claimed it needed urgently for major repairs to these buildings.