Hacker News Reader

This is overly dismissive of the concerns of poor and working class renters. A big problem in this debate is that privileged, largely white people who want more affordable market rate housing claim to be speaking on behalf of poorer people and claim that the same set of policies and approaches will work for everyone. They dismiss them as “misled” instead of listening carefully to their expressed needs for much more subsidized housing construction and controls on gentrification of their communities. Those are things that local governments can affect, so generally disempowering them is a concern to these communities.

Municipalities aren't like states of the Union. Municipalities have no power except that which is granted to them by the state. There is nothing legally stopping any state government from passing a law tomorrow to change how municipalities are run.

Except landlords have tons of political capital to expend, most effectively at the state government level.

this is 100% not true. Local governments are controlled by old people who are fighting change. Landlords would love to increase the density of properties to make more money from a single property.