[ninth_ant]

Rent control rewards the entrenched people who were lucky enough to find a unit early, at the expense of everyone who came later. The beneficiaries of this may not consider it that way, but it most certainly is a form of wealth for them. So I would argue that even they too, are wealthy.

The victims of rent control are everyone who is pushed out of the city -- or those who cannot move there -- because of how rent control makes building rental units unprofitable.

[mateo411]

> because of how rent control makes building rental units unprofitable.

In Mountain View units have to be built before 1994 to be subject to rent control. This actually incentivizes developers to build new units, because they will be market rate units.

There are problems with rent control, but making building rental units unprofitable isn't one of them.

[femiagbabiaka]

How do we explain the rapid displacement of people in cities without rent control then? Markets are not as rational as your line of thought would lead us to believe. Actually — there is one clear rationale, capital accumulation at all cost.

[vkou]

> Rent control rewards the entrenched people who were lucky enough to find a unit early, at the expense of everyone who came later.

And market housing rewards well-paid, rich professionals at the expense of everyone who isn't pulling in a FAANG salary.

Neither is a 'fair' distribution of shelter - that much is true.

> The victims of rent control are everyone who is pushed out of the city -- or those who cannot move there -- because of how rent control makes building rental units unprofitable.

If you remove rent control tomorrow, there's going to be no shortage of immediate, acutely suffering victims of that political decision. Forgive me that I have more sympathy for those individuals, then some nebulous group of 'People who, for whatever reason, really want to move to SF, and can afford a $2,800 apartment, but not a $3,400 one, so they don't move to SF.'

[imtringued]

>If you remove rent control tomorrow, there's going to be no shortage of immediate, acutely suffering victims of that political decision.

That's how rent control works in a high demand area by design.

people suffer from high rents -> rent control is introduced -> people suffer less -> people oppose higher density because they don't suffer -> prices of real estate increase in the meantime -> rent control ends (moving/displaced) -> people suffer from high rents even more

The ideal scenario would be this:

people suffer from high rents -> higher density is introduced -> people benefit from low rents

[flukus]

> If you remove rent control tomorrow, there's going to be no shortage of immediate, acutely suffering victims of that political decision.

I have no dog in this race but I'm curious how this would play out long term. The people that are made homeless and have to move are all working in jobs necessary to a functioning society, cutting hair, stacking shelves, cleaning toilets, etc. How do these functions get replaced?

Would higher salaries be offered? If so the relative pay of tech workers would go down and it could create a real inflationary feedback cycle, surely tech workers would probably price themselves out of the market at some point.

Would people commute from further away instead? Surely the number of people willing to commute 2 hours each way for low pay would be limited. This would also cause a whole heap of traffic issues.

Would these sorts of jobs simply move out of the city? It's hard to imagine but what if a grocery store simply couldn't afford people to stack shelves and they all closed down? Does everyone order from Amazon?

In most cases it seems having a viable working class in the area is what allows tech workers to be rich.

[cycrutchfield]

News flash, in a capitalist society, scarce resources are more readily available to those with money than those without. Regarding “fair distribution of shelter”, what do you consider fair? How do you allocate scarce resources in a fair manner? You make it sound like having an apartment in downtown SF is some sort of inalienable right.

[xnyan]

News flash its no longer 1972 and criticism of capitalism is now allowed.

[cycrutchfield]

Great, let's hear that criticism and constructive alternative solutions to the vexing problem of fair allocation of scarce resources?