I've been thinking this week about Proposition 10, the statewide initiative on California's November ballot to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. I just published medium.com/@ldavidbaron/mixe… explaining why I've decided I'm against it.

I don’t think the one follows from the other. The state can mandate density, and developers will just raise rent prices to compensate for the lack of ability to increase rents in later years. I get your concern, but given the state’s power it’s unwarranted.

Not sure which "one" and "other" you mean, but: Prop 10 allows cities to set *initial* rents. So a city that wants to block rental housing could just say that one bedroom apartments rent for $500/month, etc., which would make it no longer worthwhile to build rental buildings.

Wait a second. This doesn’t just let cities institute rent control, it lets them set rental prices?

There are different sorts of things called "rent control" in different places (consider old NYC "rent controlled" vs "rent stabilized" where the latter is like SF's "rent control") -- but yes, this allows cities to regulate initial rents.