Summary

• Washington Post editorial board says Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani are racing to wreck their housing markets
• Wu now backs a November ballot initiative capping Massachusetts rents at 5% or inflation annually
• Massachusetts already tried rent control from 1970-1994 — voters banned it after watching 11,000 Boston units disappear
• Even progressive Governor Maura Healey opposes the measure, warning investors have already fled the state

BOSTON — The Washington Post is not pulling punches: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are locked in a competition to see who can tank their housing market faster.

In a scathing editorial, the Post editorial board accused both politicians of pursuing rent control policies that economists across the political spectrum have repeatedly condemned as counterproductive.

Wu's flip-flop

The Massachusetts ballot initiative Wu now supports would cap annual rent increases statewide at 5% or the rate of inflation — whichever is lower. New construction and owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units would be exempt.

Here's the problem: Wu herself called the measure "quite restrictive" just last year and worried it would discourage construction.

Her explanation for the reversal? The tired cliché that she won't "let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Translation: she knows it won't work, but it polls well.

Massachusetts already tried this

The state is not flying blind here. Massachusetts authorized large cities to implement rent control in 1970. The results were predictable: housing units vanished and quality cratered.

Triple-decker apartments in Jamaica Plain — housing stock that rent control helped hollow out in the 1980s. (File photo) By the mid-1980s, Boston had lost roughly 11,000 rentals to vacancy while 6,000 people sat on waitlists for public housing. Voters got the message and approved a 1994 ballot initiative banning rent control entirely.

Wu moved to Massachusetts in 2003 — nine years after voters rejected the policy she's now championing.

Even Healey gets it

Governor Maura Healey opposes the rent control ballot measure, warning investors are already fleeing. (File photo)

The most telling opposition comes from Governor Maura Healey, who is hardly a free-market ideologue.

In December, Healey publicly opposed the ballot measure, explaining that housing investors have already begun pulling out of Massachusetts over rent control fears. She worries — correctly — that construction could stop entirely.

When a progressive Democratic governor is warning you that your housing policy will backfire, maybe listen.

The real solution nobody wants to discuss

Back Bay brownstones — the kind of housing Boston needs more of, not price controls on. (File photo)

Boston's rents are high because demand outpaces supply. The answer is obvious: make it easier to build housing.

Instead, Wu wants to make it harder for landlords to profit, which means fewer apartments get built, existing units deteriorate, and the housing crisis deepens.

Rent control is a proven failure that keeps returning because "we'll freeze your rent" fits on a campaign sign. Actual solutions — streamlining permitting, upzoning neighborhoods, cutting regulatory barriers — require explaining economics to voters.

Wu would rather promise magic.