Won't happen. The Nimbys have all of the money and can influence the votes in extraordinary ways. Look at Seattle, they won't budge and we have an enormous amount of single family housing. Our mayor is also nearly entirely useless as well, and seemingly only cares about sports teams.

The amount of propaganda that would be pushed out to crush any changes to zoning would be on historic levels.

AB 2923, which overrides local zoning in order to allow BART to develop on its parking lots, recently passed both houses in California, despite NIMBY objections. And the Housing Accountability Act, which NIMBYs loathe, has long been law (and was even strengthened relatively recently).

Renters are a growing political force.

> Renters are a growing political force.

Renters (often under rent control) are NIMBYs as well, don't understand or are convinced that supply and demand don't apply to housing.

> Renters (often under rent control) are often NIMBYs as well

This is a very SF-specific view of the world. :)

Rent control is specific to just a handful of locations and is often subject to statewide restrictions (e.g. Costa-Hawkins). In general, renters are less inclined toward NIMBYism. This is especially true for the younger ones, who don't benefit as much from RC even in the locations where it exists. And even rent controlled tenants don't like the fact that they can't move.

It applies beyond just California. It's in NY as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more locations.

I'm in Los Angeles, where it is a factor.

Rent control is almost exclusive to California and New York. Ref: http://www.landlord.com/rent_control_laws_by_state.htm

Your link doesn't support your claim, as it indicates rent control exists in D.C., several cities in Maryland, over 100 jurisdictions in N.J., as well as a smaller (but still large) number of jurisdictions in NY and almost a dozen in CA (there's also some more in CA listed in a heading of “other than rent control”, which seems likely to be intended to indicate something that is not rent control but raises some similar issues for landlords, but the links all appear to be dead links, so the actual specific meaning is less than clear.)

So, if it's “almost exclusive” to any pair of states, it's New Jersey and New York, not NY and CA.

(The source is also inaccurate in at least one respect, in that NY by the description given on the page and CA due to Costa-Hawkins both meet the criteria for a “Yes” in State Prohibits or Preempts Rent Control column, but both have blanks in that column.)

To clarify, I meant “easily” in terms of fewer legal barriers. Political barriers is indeed a whole other issue.

Depends on the state. Some states are pro-growth, some are not.

>States can easily supplant the zoning powers of their local governments.

Depends on how home rule is set up in that state's constitution.

Most state constitutions are relatively simple to amend. Certainly much easier than the U.S. Constitution.

And they do; see the Housing Accountability Act in California, for example.