EDITORIAL: Elevating progressive ideology over reality

It’s a tale of two cities, with lessons for Nevada Democrats. One city embraced rent control. The other didn’t. Guess which one is now backtracking?

Minneapolis and St. Paul are known as the Twin Cities. But they have followed radically different paths when it comes to housing affordability. Minneapolis officials in recent years have “strictly focused on creating” new supply, The Wall Street Journal noted this week. Meanwhile, St. Paul’s politicians in 2022 “enacted one of the strictest rent-control regimes in the country,” according to the newspaper.

But St. Paul’s efforts to elevate progressive ideology above reality came with a steep price.

Within a year, the number of new building permits cratered in St. Paul by 79 percent. “Real estate investment activity nearly froze,” the Journal reported. “Developers halted new projects as lenders pulled back.” Property values declined, making the city’s housing crunch even worse.

All this is entirely consistent with what the vast majority of economists have long argued. Rent control, while a boon to a small number of existing renters, discourages investment and undermines other market incentives to boost housing supply. Landlords have less reason to improve their properties. Developers have no motivation to build. Property owners who may have been tempted to enter the marketplace opt to stay on the sidelines.

But while St. Paul was suffering from its self-inflicted wound, Minneapolis was doing fine. “Housing permits surged in early 2022,” the Journal reported, and rents grew more slowly than the national average — and even more slowly than in neighboring St. Paul.

“More people are recognizing that rent control doesn’t work,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told the Journal.

That includes even some of the true believers in St. Paul. Officials there have opted to water down their rent-control law by exempting new construction and properties built after 2024. The city’s mayor told the Journal that, when it comes to the city’s original statute, “The math just doesn’t add up.”

Yet Nevada Democrats and the state’s left-wing advocates haven’t absorbed the lesson. During the 2025 legislative session, progressive lawmakers unveiled a number of bills ostensibly designed to address Nevada’s housing “crisis.” Few of them focused on generating new supply, and at least one — previously introduced in 2023 — included a rent control component. Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo wisely vetoed their proposals.

“Joe Lombardo once again put wealthy special interests over working Nevadans,” squealed a June release from the Nevada Democratic Party. In fact, as St. Paul’s experience highlights, the governor actually saved these misguided Democratic lawmakers from their own worst instincts.