Word: sternlieb
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...present rent control law ends this year, so the state legislature must decide on its extension, amendment or repeal in the coming months. To aid in this decision, the Massachusetts Legislature commissioned the Harbridge House report. To the same end, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board funded George Sternlieb's investigation...
...vague and its use of statistics undisciplined. At times the report relies on irrelevant figures to back up its arguments and, even worse, uses statistics from biased sources without qualification. Finally, the report entirely sloughs over crucial issues such as rent control's effect on housing maintenance. The Sternlieb report, Sternlieb's investigation is incomplete and contains important informational gaps...
...being sacrificed to the long-range effects of reduced maintenance. Rent control's proponents claim that it has had no detrimental effect on the quality of the housing stock and that the original housing shortage continues. Predictably, the Harbridge House report sticks to the latter line while the Sternlieb report follows the former. Only a sharply analytical look at the information provided in both reports allows the reality of the issue to shine through...
...such a shortage exists, some kind of rent control is necessary to keep rents within reasonable limits. After conclusively proving that there is no reliable measure for vacancy rates which would determine the extent of a housing shortage, Harbridge House still speculates that there is such a shortage. The Sternlieb report entirely ignores the issue. There are indicators on both sides-public housing projects (except in Roxbury and Dorchester) are over-subscribed, but there is an increasing number of abandoned buildings in supposedly overcrowded Cambridge...
Then there's the issue of rent control and its effect on housing quality. The Sternlieb report makes a strong argument that landlords, confronted with stable rents and rising costs, are cutting back on their only variable-maintenance costs. Mortgage payments and taxes are by far the greatest costs for landlords, and are almost entirely beyond their control. The margin left for maintenance is never a large one, but with inflation (especially in heating fuel) and rent control, it may be non-existent. With a housing stock such as Cambridge's, consisting largely of older buildings, maintenance costs are substantial...