The problem is that average rent increasing isn't actually a good metric on how it is affecting the cost of living for people that previously lived there. This

The problem is that average rent increasing isn't actually a good metric on how it is affecting the cost of living for people that previously lived there. This sounds unintuitive at first, but turns out to be fairly simple. The first thing to consider is that the density on new construction for these is significantly higher - a lot of land that had 80 units before might now have now have an additional 640. Most of these apartment buildings downtown are building up significantly higher than previous places. Going from 4 stories to 30+. Some seriously tall high rises. And then it's a good thing that these are targeted as luxury accommodations, because they're making the high income newcomers their targets - that means there are fewer of these newcomers targeting the existing housing increasing that price. Now, you have luxury housing that exists in much higher quantities than the previous housing - this has a disproportionate impact on the city average, but doesn't say anything about the impact on the majority of existing housing outside of these new constructions. That isn't to say it hasn't gone up as well, but you have to look at how much the supply of this existing housing has contracted and if that contraction has pushed the demand up enough that those prices have significantly increased as well. This isn't captured in looking at the average rent price of the city.