[adventureartist]

The true solution is Zoning Reform. Property owners would build many more units themselves, with their own capital, if allowed to build enough units to make it worthwhile. This doesn't happen because many current property owners (skewing older and wealthier) enjoy the current density and property values based on the current scarcity of units. Rent control is a weak solution to affordability, and has almost no or negative impact on gentrification, and no or negative impact on housing stock growth. Rent control seems like it's for the renter, but it's actually just the only political solution allowed by owner-occupied current property owners. Zoning Reform is the free market solution, allowing an owner of a property to build what they want on their own land. (Solve the homeless problem too...). Time will tell if the democratic scales tip from the NIMBY homeowners to those currently priced out of unit ownership.

[CryptoPunk]

Rent control is for the renter, but the currently occupying renter, and not those who would like to move to the neighbourhood in the future. It is also a short-term solution, that provides the currently occupying renter with a current advantage, but at the cost of making rent region-wide more expensive for new lease agreements, which greatly constrains their options in the future should they decide they want to move, or should the unit they are occupying need to be vacated due to a need for reconstruction or repairs.