[Necromant2005]

Rent control as any other control tend to more control. I may say unpopular opinion, but if you can't afford to life in SF - fk SF and the valley and move to the place witch fits you more. Look at amount of angel investors in the valley, their amount is decreasing year to year. People are leaving SF/valley for a better places for better costs/proposition value. It's a general economical factor. All those will eventually, led to describing popularity/population of the area and decreasing rent as result. When a tech giant will leave sunny California, all those NotInMyBackyard will be happy to get a new block next to their place in order to get a job.

[UncleMeat]

If everybody who can't afford to live in the area moves then we won't have people staffing grocery stores or cooking in restaurants or teaching kindergarten.

[daenz]

Exactly, and allowing that ebb and flow of the market to work is a good thing. As other people pointed out, it's not like there wouldn't be grocery store staff and that's the end of it. The demand is still there. And when the supply is low but the demand stays the same, the wages go up. All of these things are connected and tend towards an equilibrium.

The thing that keeps things from flowing properly are artificial regulations. For example, artificially low housing (like gov subsidized) in expensive areas make it so low income people can work in high income places for low wages. They can't afford to eat at the restaurants (or buy other higher income things local to the area), but they can afford to work at them. The regulation is artificially boosting supply to match demand so wages do not trend upwards.

[goodpoint78]

> As other people pointed out, it's not like there wouldn't be grocery store staff and that's the end of it. The demand is still there. And when the supply is low but the demand stays the same, the wages go up.

The reality is that this doesn't happen when it gets really bad. A few real-world examples:

Nebraska had (as of December 2016) 11 counties without a lawyer[0].

In California, when immigrant labor started getting deported, celery farmers kept increasing wages to attract new labor, and even after more than doubling their wages, couldn't get enough people to pick all the celery.[1]

[0] https://www.npr.org/2016/12/26/506971630/nebraska-and-other-... [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/607996811/worker-shortage-hur...

[daenz]

>Nebraska had (as of December 2016) 11 counties without a lawyer[0].

A court-appointed attorney is a constitutional right (6th amendment). The government guarantees you will have the option of legal representation if accused of a crime, and you can take it all the way to the Supreme Court if you don't get that.

>In California, when immigrant labor started getting deported, celery farmers kept increasing wages to attract new labor, and even after more than doubling their wages, couldn't get enough people to pick all the celery.

Then wages weren't high enough. It really is that simple. And if the farmer can't get anyone to buy the celery priced high enough to support the costs of labor, then he shifts away from labor intensive crops, or outsources the crops, which is exactly what the article says he did. This is a healthy functioning market, responding to supply and demand pressures. And $$$ awaits the man or woman who invents a cheaper way to harvest celery at lower labor costs.

[throwawaysea]

Yes you will. A reduction in labor supply means wages for those roles will go up. But if everyone is willing to live in these locations for low wages, then that means they are accepting the tradeoffs of low wages for other benefits of living in the area.

[imgabe]

Well golly, I guess billionaires will just have to bag their own damn groceries or maybe work on building more housing so the help can have a place to live too

[egypturnash]

Welcome to Galt's Gulch, where everyone is just too important to do any of the real work!

[bthrn]

That would in turn make the area less attractive to live in, and some of the wealthy people who want to have groceries would consider living elsewhere.

It's not black and white like that but in general this is how markets are supposed to work (in theory).

[redisman]

What really happens is they get a really expensive organic grocery store that can afford to pay the employees because of the margins.