RENT CONTROL FANATICS DEMAND MORE FAILURES, INDY NODS SYMPATHETICALLY

Another week, another bleat from the Santa Barbara Independent about how the city’s crushing housing costs are too complicated for basic economics – but perfectly solvable by city council. Their latest piece, 'Santa Barbara: Build a Rent Policy that Works,' seems to argue that the problem with past rent control schemes wasn't the schemes themselves, but that they just weren't... *schemey enough*. One would think that after decades of 'housing solutions' that only ever lead to higher prices, fewer available units, and landlords fleeing for saner pastures, even the most blinkered progressive might connect the dots. But no, the call is always for more of the same, just louder.

Now, about those 'essential workers' whose earnings supposedly can't keep up: perhaps if the City Council and their developer pals stopped treating every new housing project like an artisanal, bespoke spaceship requiring years of permits, fees, and 'community outreach' (read: NIMBY obstruction), building costs wouldn't be stratospheric. Could it be that endless bureaucratic hurdles, ever-increasing 'inclusionary zoning' demands, and an obsession with 'social equity' mandates inflate prices far more effectively than any market force? Shhh, don't tell the Independent; they might have to consider a solution that doesn't involve another government department.

The real angle the Independent studiously avoids? The endless pipeline of new residents attracted by Santa Barbara's increasingly absurd and unsustainable public sector job salaries, often funded by generous, taxpayer-backed pension packages. When the city itself becomes a magnet for non-productive, comfortably middle-managed 'environmental compliance officers' making six figures, while simultaneously choking off private sector job growth with regulations, *of course* housing costs explode. It's not a market failure; it's a feature of progressive Utopia, where everyone gets a public job and nobody builds anything the public actually needs. Perhaps a rent policy that 'works' would involve less government and more common sense. Just a thought.