- Vienna, Austria: About 60% of residents live in city-subsidized or cooperatively owned housing
- Berlin, Germany: Rent control has been mixed, varies by neighborhood, but seen as working
- Singapore: Not rent control in the classic sense, but government-built housing
- Montreal, Canada: Rent control applies mainly to existing tenant
Not all perfect. There are others. It can work.
“it can work” in some way of course. People are surprisingly adaptable to living in semi-dysfunctional environments. But it reality the only thing that truly works is building a lot of housing.
Rent control isn't the cause of that, though, it's lack of housing supply to meet demand. If there was no rent control, competition would be just as fierce, and prices still high.
Some genuinely lovely so-called “rust-belt” cities in the US have enjoyed a cheap housing renaissance on the back of historical population decline that is driving population increase now.