While it might be ideal to have local control, cities such as my city of NYC respond to special interests -- in this case wealthy landlords. The local government serves wealthy landlords by making land artificially scarce and scarcity is reflected in higher prices. In microeconomics this is called "rent-seeking" which in this case is using politics to create profits far, far higher than costs. Thus Donald Trump and other wealthier landlords are getting huge sums of money from renters who are paying far, far more than they would in an efficient market. By responding to the campaign donations of wealthy landlords the local city councils have created a regressive tax and this is also a major form of inequality.

The local city councils respond to lobbying on the part of wealthy landlords by 1) zoning density restrictions, 2) overregulation and amount of red tape needed for approvals, and 3) overuse of historic landmark status.

Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively about these problems. For example: Build Big Bill http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....

See also: 40 Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...

The solution is to use the one in used by Japan which is to have the federal government override the "rent-seeking" local city councils. The honest truth is that these city councils make renters and younger people pay far, far more for housing while giving Donald Trump and his fellow wealthy landlords far, far more money than their costs.