ABSTRACT
New York City has had the greatest experience with rent regulation of any municipality in the United States. The glut of cases, in fact, was one of the factors that led to the passage of the Emergency Rent Laws in September 1920. Tenant organizing shifted from protest to representation of tenants in court, and organizers also began lobbying to preserve the rent legislation, which required renewal every two years. Rent control became a national political football in the partisan battle between liberal Democratic president Harry Truman and the conservative Republican Congress elected in 1946. The glut of cases, in fact, was one of the factors that led to the passage of the Emergency Rent Laws in September 1920. The new laws strengthened tenants’ rights against eviction and instituted judicial arbitration to decide on the reasonableness of contested rent increases. The city’s Rent and Rehabilitation Administration emphasized neighborhood conservation and building rehabilitation.
