Where gentrification exists, absolutely correct. But there are a ton of areas not gentrifying, just turning the screws. One can see rent prices rise even in a

Where gentrification exists, absolutely correct. But there are a ton of areas not gentrifying, just turning the screws. One can see rent prices rise even in areas with a declining population, for example. And as long as enough people are willing to just pay more, everyone has to pay more. I'm not really proposing unionized renters, I don't know what the solution really is. The free market sounds nice on paper, until things crash ever so often. It's not just rent, it happened with house prices, too. You had/have a sizeable amount of people out there willing to spend the absolute max the bank would approve them for, to compete. I was watching the RealEstate/REBubble subs over the last two years, and the number of people living outside their realistic means seemed insane to me. This in turn made more competition, driving prices higher. A reasonable person who say, wouldn't try to buy a 500k house on a 100k salary was left with no choice(area dependent, of course).