Fascinating read. I've always maintained a position of being staunchly in favour of rent control, but hadn't considered a city could get it so ass-backwards as

Fascinating read. I've always maintained a position of being staunchly in favour of rent control, but hadn't considered a city could get it so ass-backwards as it sounds like San Francisco has. In Vancouver, we have a housing crisis as well, but our rent control more or less makes sense: Landlords can raise rents every year, but up to a maximum allowed percentage which varies every year but (to my knowledge) is no more than 3-4% in any given year. If the leaseholder leaves, the lease is effectively over. Leases can't be transferred or reassigned (which does end up biting people sometimes when one of the people on a lease wants to leave, ending the lease and triggering an increase for the other person) I'd take this any day over what would happen if we didn't have any rent control... even if initial rents on moving into a place might be roughly the same, renters as a whole would end up paying much more over time.