<i>SF-style widepsread rent control seems like part of the problem to me</i><p>You raise a good question.  What would rent in SF look like without rent control?<p>Thinking through the process, I imagine something like:<p>1. Rent for everyone would have gone up over time<p>2. Renters would have been slowly forced out as rent increases exceeded their incomes<p>3. However, it&#x27;s likely that there would have been a lot more units opening up over time.  That likely would have slowed the increase in rent.<p>I&#x27;m certainly not saying that a &quot;no rent control&quot; situation would be ideal, but I&#x27;m wondering if it&#x27;s just made the rent situation in SF much worse than it would have been otherwise.