Over the last decade, Houston, TX has far exceeded the growth rate of San Francisco:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/08/houston-rising-why-the-next-great-american-cities-aren-t-what-you-think.html
“Houston, Charlotte, Raleigh, Las Vegas, Nashville, and San Antonio, for example, experienced increases in the number of college-educated residents of nearly 40 percent or more over the decade, roughly twice the level of growth as in “brain centers” such as Boston, San Francisco, San Jose (Silicon Valley), or Chicago. “
Houston also has no rent control laws and many fewer building regulations. In the face of such increased demand, and without rent control to protect them, the landlords of Houston must be gouging the renters there, right? Yet the cost renting in Houston is 83% lower than it is in San Francisco.
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=Houston%2C+TX&country2=United+States&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA
Houston is full of evil Republicans who care nothing for the poor and downtrodden, so how can Houston have much more housing that the poor can actually afford?
“Over 25,000 apartment units were built each year from 1977 through 1983. What had been cow pastures and rice paddies only ten years before were transformed into sprawling apartment complexes in a matter of months as developers raced to meet the growing demand for housing.”
But you might say, San Francisco doesn’t have rent control for new construction. Why don’t developers build more? Well, developers aren’t stupid. If San Francisco imposed rent control before, what’s to stop them from doing it again?
“The real victims of rent control are property owners who must accept less than market rates for their properties. Rents are established by a central board, and annual rent increases are generally meager, if allowed at all. In New York City, some renters still are paying 1940s rates for their apartments. It is little wonder that developers are reluctant to build new rental housing in such cities.
Even the most radical rent control advocates eventually recognize the discouragement to new construction that rent control creates. Consequently, like most statist policies, exceptions are made as those in power seek to gain the benefits of the free market without losing their control over the lives of others. Most often, new construction is exempted from rent controls.
But even this enticement is seldom sufficient to stimulate new construction. After all, the exceptions that can be arbitrarily granted can just as easily be arbitrarily withdrawn. Developers see little reason to take chances on such a possibility, when cities such as Houston offer developers the economic freedom all industries need to thrive.
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/houstons-laissez-faire-housing-policy#axzz2VZMMkh8c
Moreover, San Francisco has a baroque and expensive regulatory apparatus. More than half the cost of new housing in San Francisco is attributable to complying with housing regulations.
” San Francisco is the city with the greatest direct
dollar cost of regulations. After adjusting for inflation, all regulatory measures combined are
estimated to have contributed $409,332 to San Francisco’s housing price between 1989 and 2006
(or 51 percent of the 2006 price).”
http://depts.washington.edu/teclass/landuse/Housing051608.pdf
Given the great cost of complying with regulations, and the risk that new rent control laws will be imposed, it’s a wonder that San Francisco developers build as much as do.
