It sucks, because only 2 or 3 towns in MA had rent control, but developers scared city councils across the state into voting to ban the practice.
Why does it suck? The market should be allowed to work.
If you go to the Marxist extreme of a centrally planned economy people aren't taken into account.
If you go to the extreme of a completely unregulated free market economy people aren't taken into account.
The happy medium is a free market that's regulated to prevent coercive and abusive practices. The US had a much stronger overall economy and greater general prosperity when it followed that model. The neoliberal extremist policies that have been been adopted since the 80s have been a series of unfolding tragedies for the poor and middle class in the US.
Rent controls don't appear in a vacuum, they are a response to the unfolding human tragedies of rentier exploitation that harm actual people. They may not be optimally implemented in SF, but to label them Communist is extremist.
The neoliberal shock-treatment approach in Russia was a human disaster as well, and the horrors in Chile, parts of the EU, and elsewhere show why extremism that cares more about ideology than humanity is a vice. It doesn't matter if the ideologues are Marxists or Capitalists, ideologues always promote policies that are bad for humanity, since they care more about ideological purity than practicality or humanity.
Quite frankly, I consider "the market" forcing people out of areas they've lived in for most of their lives to be a far worse outcome.
I don't. I don't really know why anyone would. Like, ideally in a perfect world both Joe and Frank would be able to live where they want, but given that land is a persistently scarce resource, what's the basis for privileging Joe over Frank? And what is the magnitude of the privilege that we should regard as a natural right? Surely not infinite.
Basically, you're just making a "Might makes right" argument, but substituting wealth for physical might.
Do I have to sell my labor to my current employer cheaper than a prospective new employer? Do I have to sell my used car cheaper to someone who once rode in it than I could to another buyer? Why then should landlords be subject to those restrictions?
A stable community is a thing not much valued by (young and transient) tech workers, though I would argue that even they derive some benefit from living near folks who make less money than they do.
Rent control doesn't create utopia -- and this article describes some of its acknowledged problems -- but neither would abolishing it be free of consequence.
Like most things in life, it's a trade-off. Don't overlook one side of the exchange.