&gt; The irony is that those rising rents are due in no small part due to their acting against their stated mission when it comes to allowing tall buildings in this city. They&#x27;d rather sprawl people out into the suburbs and beyond, where they&#x27;ll bulldoze swaths of nature to build their buildings, and the people living and working there will have much larger carbon footprints.<p>Berkeley is especially guilty of this. Last I heard, a few years ago, the building cap was something ridiculously low. I was told six stories was the max by a friend as we carpooled to work from East Bay to South Bay due to the scarcity of attractive rental spaces in SB. Thus, there is major congestion toward and away from SF every day as the population cannot be condensed. Berkeley is the most NIMBY city I&#x27;ve seen.<p>It took me two years to find a high quality space to rent in an attractive part of Oakland and this was about eight years ago. Today, there&#x27;s no chance I&#x27;d give it up as I&#x27;m doubtful I could ever get as lucky in the present market. I&#x27;ve concluded that if I opt to spend a year traveling, I&#x27;ll have to pay rent on my present space while I&#x27;m not using it because I don&#x27;t want to live in a delapidated unit at an even higher rate when I come home.