Why do people panic so much about this?
It has been shown time and time again that price floors or ceilings very rarely help a market be efficient. Quite the opposite usually.
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It's also really arbitrary. I live in the upper west side district mentioned. My rent is $2600, i.e my unit is skirting just above the rent control line. I bet my unit was 'de-controlled' in the last 8 years.
But the classification doesn't matter to me personally at all. If the apartment went from $2400 to $2600, while it was decontrolled, the affordability hasn't changed that much. Meanwhile a unit that was $1900 several years ago could be $2400 now because they reset the rent every time the tenant switches. It is much less affordable, but it is still rent controlled. This data is not going to help you figure out if things have gotten significantly less affordable.
Which really means this is just a map of where median rents are close to the line between rent controlled and not rent controlled. Notice that the areas that are much more expensive don't show change, since everything was over the line to begin with. The places that are really cheap also don't show a huge amount of change because even after increases the units are still rent controlled. So overall it's good data but it's not telling you that much.
Your post assumes that the point of rent control is to provide some housing inventory that is below market value for new tenants. In actuality, the point is to ensure that long-time residents will not be swiftly priced out of their communities.
i.e. it doesn't matter that I'll pay market rent for a rent-controlled unit I move into today. What matters is that the yearly increase in my rent will probably not outstrip my income over the long term.
please don't conflate rent-stabilization with rent-control.
They are two different things.
"Rent Control" is something that specifically applies to residents occupying a unit prior to a specific day in 1971 and their qualified heirs.
They want to preserve the culture of people who have less money. Yes, the market would be more efficient with no price controls but at the cost of replacing low income tenants with higher income tenants. I think a better solution is reasonably priced public housing distributed throughout the city.
We tried the public housing solution in the 1940s-60s and it has been an unmitigated disaster.
Personally I think if we really want to subsidize housing for some New Yorkers of modest means we should do so with vouchers.
Lloyd Blankfein, who grew up in a public housing project and later wrote a letter to NYCHA about how he loved growing up there, might disagree with you.
Also. http://nymag.com/news/features/housing-projects-2012-9/
If they are so great, I'm sure you wouldn't mind moving from your W 55th street rent controlled apartment up a few blocks to the Amsterdam Houses, right?
Back in that time period? Sure.
The problems are a result of the political will shifting and the funding disappearing.
Price controls are generally considered to be inefficient purely from an economic perspective.
However, the free market has generally been a terrible provider of low-income housing solutions. There's a long, long history to this from shanty towns to tenements. That's why basically all developed countries have some type of social housing component from demand-side subsidies to public housing or regulated stock.
When we lose permanently affordable units, it is invariably extraordinarily expensive to replace them given land costs and the size of subsidies that are needed. Contemporary homelessness emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in both San Francisco and New York as both cities started to lose single-room occupancy hotels or SROs.
Regarding efficiency.. I'm noticing more homeless wandering the east village pandering for money these days. With the rents approaching 4k/mo for a 1bdrm, people will probably not tolerate being harassed for money (was called an asshole the other day for ignoring a request for donation by a dude, who I can only assume is homeless). That said, I kinda miss the edginess of the East Village from years gone by...
Why do people demonize it so much?
The number of units under price ceiling have an insignificant impact on the market anyway.