My previous post's parent discussed an 80 year old pensioner being unable to afford to continue living in San Francisco (or some other hypothetical rent controlled city) despite the fact that they can't afford to live there without rent control. That was the exact scenario that was sold to California voters in 1978 for Prop 13 and people voted for it because it seemed like it would benefit them (at least in the short term) and actually does the opposite long-term.
Re: the financial situation, California only recently paid off debts left over from the wake of Enron criminal fraud days.[1]
Obviously the underfunded retirement funds are huge looming unknowns, but they are partially (if not mostly) caused by local governments (such as the city of Stockton) underfunding during the bull market years and being unable to pay during the bear market years.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
And these 2 are related ... how ?
California is broke, which is what causes those underfunding issues. Why ? Nobody is blaming rent control. It's there, but it's so small it registers on very few radars.
Rightist view: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/reasons-to-leave-californi... (TLDR: unemployment (due to various high taxes, rightist site indeed), debt (pension/unemployment liabilities), poverty)
Leftist view: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-samuels/why-california-is-... (TLDR: tax exemptions for large corporations, including the claim they wouldn't leave for high tax because of good schools)