Which they can probably pretty accurately say it is causing rent increases, albeit not directly. It goes something like this: 1.) New housing starts to get bui

Which they can probably pretty accurately say it is causing rent increases, albeit not directly. It goes something like this: 1.) New housing starts to get built 2.) The new residents demand safer/cleaner streets or just higher quality restaurants/cafes/etc. Or, sensing a market opportunity, those businesses move in themselves. 3.) Those things happen...and more 4.) More residents want to move in 5.) Prices for the existing housing stock increases 6.) New houses are built because there is demand 7.) go to 2. QED: rents rise "because" new housing was built. There definitely IS an equilibrium that will be reached, but a city like San Francisco has an almost unlimited supply of young and wealthy residents that think the suburbs are hell and want to live in a vibrant city. So the fear of some people that oppose more housing is that the equilibrium point, even if you were very aggressively adding housing stock, would be way above what "normal" people would be able to pay. So it's really a tough problem. yes, nimbyism is a thing. Yes more housing will eventually reduce prices (or reach a steady state), but the number of houses that need to be added may very well be unrealistic for any city and end up with rents just going ever higher pricing out all but the $200k/yr techies.