You appear to be making an incorrect assumption that there is some consistent amount of housing which will be built each year, and the question is only how to distribute it among different localities.
That's not the case. If you add the same price controls everywhere, then the same near-zero housing gets built everywhere.
Construction companies will shut down, they will not continue paying people to build housing at a loss.
They have not... and unfortunately this viewpoint is shared by too many these days.
Removing the profit-motive from the equation does not magically net increased benefits for everyone. It's usually the opposite in reality... landlords end up doing the absolute bare minimum because sinking a bunch of money into renovating the bathrooms or kitchen will not yield increased rent under these proposed policies. Or people looking to invest in housing/apartments for rental income decide it's ROI is far too low to be worth the hassle and risks... so less housing is built.
This line of thinking looks at some minority of people living in slums, and assumes every rental owner is actually a slumlord. So, the solution is obviously to degrade the situation for everyone because some small minority of people have it rough...
I mean, did you read Diamond, McQuade, and Qian? Or newer studies? It should be the minimum to read before talking about rent control effect (with Autor, Palmer, and Pathak) because people tend to cite 'Friedman', who _never_ empirically worked on this subject. I mean, I understand liberals/Libertarians seems to love pure reason, but I hope people on this website are more scientifically minded. Experience is always better than models, no?
[edit] anyway, rent-control on market housing do not work, but limited non-market housing do apply downward market pressure, even when done poorly and unplanned (as shown by AP&P study)
> In your comment you explicitly specified that the whole country should adopt the same price controls as SF.
I absolutely did not say this.
I said "Set the same price controls across the entire nation", which means one set of consistent price controls for the country, not the existing set of price controls that SF currently has.
Perhaps I should have worded it as "Set a consistent set of price controls across the entire nation".
That's fair. The wording of your comment (heavily, honestly) implies setting SF's policies nationwide, but rereading I can see how it can be read the other way.
You're correct, "Set a consistent set of price controls across the entire nation" is a much better wording.
That's not the case. If you add the same price controls everywhere, then the same near-zero housing gets built everywhere.
Construction companies will shut down, they will not continue paying people to build housing at a loss.