That depends what you mean. Rent control, for example, can be viewed as extremely friendly to the current renters but extremely unfriendly to would-be renters and the rental market as a whole.
NYC isn't cheap, but it isn't quite the level of insanity as San Francisco.
It's not as simple as you make it out to be. The laws being renter friendly are helpful but they don't solve anything. If I hadn't had the time and money to try to fight this I would probably be looking for a new place right now.
The idea that you actually get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there is quite generous. The idea that it's socially deemed "the right thing to do" is rather progressive.
If those tenant friendly laws are de facto easy to work around - and they are, particularly for poorer tenants - then they are significantly weaker than they seem. That's what the fuss is about. Poorer people get driven out because they don't have the time and money to fight their landlords trying to double their rent, whether legal or not. Richer people like me are able to fight it and win.
I don't think you understand California or San Francisco rental laws. They do not say you get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there. They control how much a landlord can raise rent, and limit some forms of eviction. But they also have many exceptions, and the burden can be on the tenant to prove the landlord is wrong.
I agree with the sentiment that rent control can result in an increase in market prices. But it's not as if the landlords are getting completely screwed, they still have avenues in which they can evict tenants, profitably upgrade the building, and achieve close to market rents. Additionally, a major factor that gets overlooked in the rent control debate is that the 'secondary market' (rooms for rent in rent controlled units) provides fairly affordable housing for young newcomers. Almost everybody I know who lives in SF does so by renting a room in a rent controlled unit that they found through friends or through craigslist. These rooms are significantly cheaper than market rates (rent control by-laws actually require that any rooms in a rent controlled unit must be re-rented at an evenly split price, or normalized price based on square footage, not that everyone abides by those rules), and probably the only reason people with marginal means can afford to live here. So, while rent control may result in an increase in market prices, it also creates a secondary market that allows for economic diversity to continue to exist in SF.
I am somewhat split on rent control, but my gut feeling tells me it is the right thing to do. Allowing landlords to arbitrarily raise rent or randomly evict tenants is unfair and disruptive to people's lives. Rent control allows for a secondary market that lets young and lower income folks get a foot in the door. I think the 'lazy rent controlled tenant who pays nothing because they lived there for 30 years' is largely a myth (or such a rarity that they have only minimal impact on the macro trends) because rent control still allows for evictions, just with a bit more red tape. Also, another factor that doesn't get discussed is the effect of rent control on a downward market. Because rents aren't ruthlessly increased to market rates during the boom times, it means people who get laid off in the bad times can actually afford to stick around and look for a new job for a while, rather than having to lift anchor and move somewhere cheaper. From what I recall, the vacancy rate in SF rose a little bit during the great recession, but no where near as bad as other places.
this concept confounds me (and I stayed in a nice rent controlled apt in SF last week). still, someone else's property, which they invested in/ care for, which they no longer get to control.
IMHO - these are all symptoms of problems that have more to do with astronomical salaries - a symptom of a perceived labor shortage - a symptom of the 'gold rush', et al.
Gentrification doesn't mean pushing all residents and culture out of a place - but it typically flows to areas with the least resistance (and location/ proximity).
So if you have an economically desolate area, and gentrification is at one end of the scale with 'detroitification' at the other - what is in the middle?
Increasingly, you are either rich or poor. A have or a have not. Most HN readers are haves or (because you are still young) think you will be haves. But life doesn't always turn out according to plan.
The most worrying thing is that if you put 95% of the people on a ship's back, it's going to sink; together with its front.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots
Sweden. Not exactly a bastion of savage Randian individualism.
Not to say that generous welfare states are of no value, but the available data suggest they are far from a panacea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France
and London riots/flash mobs:
The European riots are only significant because they're unusual against such comparatively low levels of background violence.
The main difference w/ Toronto vs SF is that Toronto has a liberal condo building policy so more affordable housing is being built by a (relatively) booming real estate industry. Whereas SF's property development growth has nowhere near reflected its population/income boom.
I can still see some seniors living in older neighbourhoods in Toronto but most of them have moved to the suburbs.
What would probably be reasonable is 1400/mo studio, 2000/mo 1BR, 2800/mo 2BR. What would be ideal is more like 1200/mo, 1700/mo, 2400/mo respectively. Yeah, that's still expensive, but it's a newer building and hopefully older buildings would be around 80% of that. But that's not going to happen.
Some additional policies like penalizing companies for letting new places be unrented for some amount of time, or allowing developers to (temporarily) displace SRO occupants while they demolish and rebuild higher density buildings in the Tenderloin could possibly help change behaviors towards increasing the supply of more modest housing, but that's not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, the city is fine letting people do what they want at top as long as it benefits the people at the bottom, with no plans to do anything for people in between.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&zoomToPost...
I think everyone's just trying to make sense of the SF real estate market, tech industry workers included. The average rental unit price in SF is now higher than Manhattan, last time I checked.
Hopefully, talking about the craziness of the SF real estate market will lead to more solutions, e.g. public pressure to make commuting from the East bay more feasible ala Brooklyn and Manhattan.