San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/nathan-collins/)
Nathan Collins (@sciencenathan) is a former political scientist and astrophysicist. He has written about science and social science for Scientific American, Pacific Standard and Stanford University.
As Californians battle this fall over a ballot measure to allow cities much wider leeway to impose all sorts of rent control, both sides of the debate throw around citations to academic papers, economic studies and seemingly compelling statistics. But a review of the available research shows that both sides are wrong.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and, very often, good urban planning policy ideas too. San Francisco and the Bay Area are no strangers to that road. Yet as talk of a housing crisis grows, the region may need a new attitude more than new ideas to avoid the mistakes of the past. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
