An odd thing happened Sunday after I tweeted about Lee Zeldin’s about-face on climate change: I was attacked on X by an owner of rent-stabilized housing.
Usually, we are on the same side. But this landlord’s message accused me of being a left-wing “activist.”
Agitated, I fired back:
“Find one reporter on the planet who has written more about the failure of rent control. Let me know when you do.”
This isn’t the only social media commentator to accuse me of bias. X users on the left have accused me of being an enemy of working people and a mouthpiece for the real estate industry.
Why? Because I advocate for privately-developed multifamily projects and don’t believe social housing can solve the affordability crisis. Moreover, these critics note that I am employed by a real estate publication.
I can see why people are confused. They want to assign everyone a label — liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, progressive, socialist, even libertarian. This way, instead of considering the contents of what someone says, they can just dismiss it based on a presumed tribal affiliation or financial motive.
Let me be clear: I don’t take positions on issues for the sake of a political party, ideology, employer or bank account. (No one goes into journalism to make money.)
Credibility comes from basing your positions on economics, science, data and facts — even if it upsets your audience.
Trying to live up to a label only biases your thinking. You’ll start at the end — “I’m progressive, so I support rent control” or “I’m conservative, so I support free markets” — and then work backward, crafting a rationale for a predetermined conclusion.
Better to judge things on a case-by-case basis, even if the results don’t fit a neat pattern. In my case:
Sometimes, a policy that seems reasonable — such as giving poor people but not high earners a break on sales tax — is impractical, which is why clothing items priced under $110 in New York are tax-free even for billionaires.
Then there’s the scaffold law, which sounds unreasonable, but on further exploration, is … even worse.
The landlord who questioned my motives was gracious enough to delete the tweet after another reader came to my defense. And the owner then complimented my column about the legislature’s baseless bills against investors’ buying houses.
For the record, on housing issues, we generally agree.
“We’ll never have enough housing in NYC until it becomes profitable to build, own, operate it,” he posted recently. “You can’t regulate your way out of a supply problem.”
