Rent control to reduce uncertainty for people already living there isn't a lottery odds thing - it's not a solution to the problem of hard to find new places, it's a solution to the problem of getting priced out by external forces.

It has side effects, but is also addressing a specific problem people want to handle that isn't necessarily fixed by "just build a bunch of new market-rate housing."

Weakening rent control in the 90s in CA didn't prevent the current homelessness problems, so I have some skepticism around taking that even further. Pushing people who could afford marginal housing into no longer being able to afford it seems like a bang-up way to increase homelessness.

Part of the root of the problem seems to be cities that trying to both avoid densifying but also increase commercial and office space and occupancy and jobs. Either policy would be fine by itself, but they explode when put together. Some cities are slowly starting to realize this, but saying "we don't need a constant economic growth rate of X% if we don't want the feel of our city to change" may not be an easy choice for politicians to sell.

It's a lottery in that if you are lucky enough to have a certain kind of lease already you deserve to get cheap rent for life but not if you don't already have a certain kind of lease. It's not something you qualify for by falling into a condition where you need it or it stops when/if you no longer need it. I know plenty of people that became quite wealthy and of course still get rent control.

Good point. I was thinking of this from the perspective of people who can't afford to live in place x, not people trying to avoid being forced out of place x by rising rents.

I'm not well-versed in the state of rent control in CA, but I am seeing more rent control put forth as a viable alternative to just building more residences. That strikes me as a bad idea.

> It has side effects, but is also addressing a specific problem people want to handle that isn't necessarily fixed by "just build a bunch of new market-rate housing."

It is a sad fact of life that the best outcome for everybody is to let the economically productive take first pick of any available resources; because they will by definition take them and turn them into more resources.

This idea that someone has a right to live somewhere because they were there first is not unreasonable, but the path of least suffering is that people pay the market price for rent.

There needs to be pretty overwhelming evidence that the problem is with what consenting adults agree to rather than the government being unreasonable with the rules on constructing new building. I'd bet that the US hasn't reached that threshold yet.

It is very much not a "by definition" truth that the people who, say, happened to snag nice tech industry salaries for their coding abilities (or their visionary decision to process credit card transactions online, or whatever their particular thing is...) will be more "productive" and make more "resources" out of having a house than people who happen to have lower salaries.

This is just self-aggrandizing "The folks life has already financially favored deserve every continued advantage over everyone else because they are so smart and talented and God's chosen ones" market-over-everything nonsense.

> It is a sad fact of life that the best outcome for everybody is to let the economically productive take first pick of any available resources;

Which is to say that the people who create money (what's more economically productive than willing money into existence?) via issuing credit (banks) or borrowing on the US's account (the Fed) will have first pick of available resources.

Why does the market price in one city need to be several times higher than in another? Why do so many of the high-paying tech jobs need to be concentrated on the west coast instead of more distributed? Are the benefits of that concentration truly higher, and truly purely rational "path of least suffering," in order to justify all the costs of it?

You also make an distinction between what consenting adults agree to in contracts and what those same consenting adults do in local governance and regulation. But why wouldn't they have the right to say "we don't want buildings over three stories here," say? Why is that necessarily "unreasonable" yet a landlord deciding to raise someone's rent 40% wouldn't be?

“They” don’t own the buildings, but the landlord owns his. If no one wants to pay an additional 40%, he gets to pound sand.

> It is a sad fact of life that the best outcome for everybody is to let the economically productive take first pick of any available resources

That is not a fact of life, it is simply a hypocritical way of legitimizing monopolistic advantage. What one defines as economically productive will unequivocally align with the groups one favors over others.

Power is not natural, it is created and reproduced, and naturalized beyond the realm of critical thought by false claims to the facts of Life.

Does life really as facts? Which life?

“Economically productive” isn’t a subjective interpretation. It’s what produces the most money. In a society we tax productivity and use the revenue collected to run services that lift up those at the bottom. More money is available for redistribution when we are collectively more productive. Suppressing productivity in the name of fairness is highly satisfying to a large contingent of politically active folks who are passionate about it, but better outcomes can usually be purchased with the tax revenue it brings.

Case in point: neighborhoods that are proud of themselves for thwarting evil developers in the name of affordability end up with fewer affordable units, because we fund affordable units as a percentage of total construction.

Don't forget to price in, account for, factor in, and otherwise adjust the numbers to match externalities, other market irrationalities, sesonalities, etc.

For example, if SF wants to solve housing (providing shelter) by municipally mandated equality between purchasing power of people, this has a certain cost, and this has a certain appeal for some residents. Would they pay more taxes to get council erected units for the less fortunate? Maybe. So these preferences have to be calculated and priced.

Sure, the market would get the most new units online in a given time, which would result in prices falling. But it seems like SF wants an apmost centrally planned solution.

Which these days means mostly ephemeral resources.

They save the tax cut and buy back stocks.

They are not starting farms to create more food or building new kinds of companies — not doing economic net new things. They’re growing their own ephemeral wealth pile

The old ways, best ideas, they have all died out in human society. No longer do we worship Roman Gods and build pyramids for Pharaohs

It’s hubris and and vanity to think we have the iron clad solution today in our time

We’re just carrying water for dead and selfish

Consenting adults who have been told this is exactly right their entire lives by government backed research into propaganda models gifted to university and media and advertising will I’m sure magically come to their senses

Rent control isn't the fundamental cause of high housing costs: it's mostly a matter of supply and demand. And, yes, rent control limits supply a bit, but nowhere near as much as complicated, arcane, and expensive building and zoning codes.

Given the trade offs, the only reforms I'd make to rent control is having some kind of gradual income requirements. The higher your income, the less rent control you get, up to the point (say, $100k+) where you aren't protected by it at all. Even that is mostly for optics, though, and wouldn't help housing costs too much.

Agreed, but my primary bone to pick here is that people seem to be proposing further rent control as a viable solution to the housing problem, rather than fixing existing restrictive building codes.

Further rent control is a viable solution to the problem of existing residents being displaced. It isn’t a solution to the difficulty of moving to desirable areas, but rent control advocates don’t consider that a legitimate problem. Or at least are okay with dampening the upward mobility of already affluent creative-class types to protect marginalized communities.

Notice how the possibility that actually non-affluent people would move somewhere for a better job is not something they think about.

Nope, that's because rent control makes that problem worse, so it's best to ignore it.

Hahah. Well, if rent control's high level of support raises your blood pressure, wait till I tell you about San Francisco's popular BMR lottery... ;)

A low-income applicant has a nonzero chance in a BMR lottery, which is better than their 0% chance in a market-rate building. There is a logic to it. Unfortunately the thinking usually stops there, rather than considering how to raise the chances overall.

According to this article:

> The urban design think tank SPUR estimated in 2014 that San Francisco had “roughly 172,000 units of rent controlled housing” at the time, about 45 percent of the city’s entire housing stock.

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/11/3/16603900/rent-control-san-fr...

It's not reasonable to consider all rent-controlled housing off the market, however. Most don't have tenants pay a rent substantially diverging from market rent. People constantly move, even if they are in a rent controlled apartment.

To wit, I'm "Rent Controlled" in SF, but since I moved apartments last year, my rent is controlled to something north of $3k/month. I've had several other friends move recently from and to other Rent Controlled units. Saying a large swath of the city is rent controlled isn't very informative without actual rent data.

The the extent rent control has an impact, it'll be negative. If rent control with serious teeth was ever passed, it would become a fundamental cause of high housing costs (or other, worse issues, depending on how it's implemented)! And I think in specific markets (San Francisco in particular) it may have more of an impact that you realise.

But you're right that the issue now is zoning and building codes of course.

The real risk there is that it would incentivize landlords to select the highest-income tenants possible (more so than they currently do).

Good point. Existing residents needing rent control, however, would get to maintain their protections. And I see the policy argument for maintaining their protections being much stronger than a generalized right to the same rent.

This is called a means test. Strangely enough rent control schemes virtually never come with a means test.

The problem isn't with rent control, it's wit rich folks opposing new construction because of various flimsy reasons.

Where do you think new housing has come up most in the Bay Area? Poor neighborhoods with lots of rent control, or rich neighbourhoods?

(Hint: you don't hear about gentrification issues in rich parts of the bay area because nobody can build new things there)

I feel like its a branding issue. "Rent Control" sounds good, I don't think people consider it beyond the initial feeling the words imbue. It is also weird that young people are generally in favor of rent control even though they move frequently and it is just another wealth transfer from the young to the old.

(to be sure, the most insidious form of rent control in California is Prop 13)