There are a lot of “…but first, the revolution” socialists who oppose private housing on the grounds that it won’t create a more affordable city (described by S

There are a lot of “…but first, the revolution” socialists who oppose private housing on the grounds that it won’t create a more affordable city (described by Sonja Trauss https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/but-first-the-revolution-e15169aa6d55 https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/but-first-the-revolution-e...). For example, the “progressive” blogger Tim Redmond argues that “outside forces” create a demand that can never be met by private construction (http://48hills.org/2016/01/04/the-nimbys-and-the-housing-crisis/ http://48hills.org/2016/01/04/the-nimbys-and-the-housing-cri...) and that private capital will never invest enough in construction to reduce the rent (http://48hills.org/2017/07/12/listen-yimby/ http://48hills.org/2017/07/12/listen-yimby/). There is a large echo chamber of tenant advocates who let the perfect be the enemy of the good and counterproductively oppose private development (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40509-yimbys-the-alt-right-darlings-of-the-real-estate-industry http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40509-yimbys-the-alt-righ..., https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/yimbys-housing-affordability-crisis-density https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/yimbys-housing-affordabil..., https://twitter.com/TenantsUnionSF/status/889152770460090368 https://twitter.com/TenantsUnionSF/status/889152770460090368, https://www.facebook.com/Vanishingsf/posts/700805940111215 https://www.facebook.com/Vanishingsf/posts/700805940111215). This is especially the case in San Francisco where programs such as rent control, inclusionary zoning, and other programs split renters into non-market partitions who mostly would not directly benefit from added supply (see Kim-Mai Cutler’s article for details on this https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/).