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We are talking Manhattan when we talk rent controls. That's where the huge majority of rent-regulated apartments are. The South Bronx is where East Siders and residents of Little Italy would have to move if rent controls were abolished---out of neighborhoods in which their familes have lived for generations and where they have lived for decades. Not everyone in NY is upwardly mobile.

During the 1997 crisis in rent protections, someone coined the phrase "economic cleansing." That is what a lot of people would like.

Also, New York is an island but that has nothing to do with it. It is also made of granite, so massive foundations are not necessary in order to build skyscrapers. Mother Nature has already supplied the foundation. That is why NYC looks the way it does. Theoretically, there is unlimited housing here, as opposed to places where the height of buildings is regulated, like Fire Island and Aspen.

Actually, ... only you are talking Manhattan when you talk rent controls. And in your last post you argue both for and against them, revealing some of the inherent fallacies in your argument.

If you said that the people who live in the less desirable Manhattan neighborhoods would be so inconvenienced as to justify the cost that everyone else must pay for rent control, I would say you have a valid point. But complaining that east siders would have to move to the South Bronx is nonsense, because as soon as those respectable if somewhat less wealthy people made that move, those neighborhoods would become respectable if somewhat less wealthy, and cease to be the cesspools that they are now.

As for your mention of the endless supply of new housing in Manhattan, don’t you imagine that might offset your alleged endless demand mentioned in other posts?

As I said earlier, history has already declared subsidized housing an abysmal economic failure. And arguing against it, is like arguing against the tide. It does no good, sometimes annoys others, and only makes you look like you don't know what your talking about.