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Reminds me of the Swedish system where one must queue for up to 20 years to get a contract for a rent-controlled apartment.[0]

i.e. like you said, if it isn't pricing keeping people out of the most desirable areas, it's some other mechanism, such as queues, migration barriers, etc. And analogously, waiting lists are used for operations in the public health system.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160517-this-is-one-city-w...

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So yeah, it's either just pricing people out, or one of the other form of Communism which as we know, never ends well, because it is a market distortion, which reduces efficiency of everyone.

In a Soviet Union it wasn't even that bad because all of the country was Communist: whole economy being centrally planned, it made quite some sense for the Party to be able to decide who gets to live where, because without right cadres where you need them, how will you execute the Five Year Plan. Would be much worse to do the same in the system which is otherwise market-oriented. An SV startup has money but unable to hire workers locally because there are simply no slots for them to live here, are reserved.

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