YIMBY and tenant activism are solving different problems that happen to be conflated under the term “housing crisis.” YIMBYism is about the ease of becoming comfortably housed in the Bay Area; tenant activism is about staying that way. YIMBYs would do well to acknowledge that the left wing’s solutions are more effective in terms of its community-preservation goals, communicate why mobility and urbanism are also worthy goals, and to search for solutions that optimize all three. You’re 100% right: at the moment, it’s tone deaf. Rent control is absolutely a better way to keep people in their apartments, and no one is going to be convinced otherwise.
There's huge amount of sentiment in California to keep new people out. So in order to punish newcomers some people are very willing to take on the negatives of rent control for those that have it--namely a huge lack of mobility once you have a place. Unfortunately that leaves all young people in the lurch, in addition to the newcomers from other places.
The idea of making it easier for people to move here is an absolutely radical and terrible idea, according to a large number of people here.
