So Cal does have rent control. Santa Monica for sure does and I believe other cities might as well.
We could build more housing if we wanted. We choose not to on both a local and state level. Thus the market responds we the prices we face.
Sorry I meant San Diego. We do not. I remember when I rented from one of those corporate residential joints with 1000 units they calibrated their rent increases. They were frequent and a number that was unlikely to make you leave, like $50 a pop every 6 months or something. Just the hassel of moving kept you there. A few years later and you were paying much more than you signed up for once the lease had expired. But that's college living. But now I see rents for a two bed apartment in a corpotae shithole are more than I pay for my mortgage on a large single family detached with a million $ view.