some thoughts (in support of OP):

1. big diff btw “local control” as municipal Balkanization v tenant power

2. state leg is suburbanite, anti-tenant & captured by real estate all at once. a real mixed bag

3. the idea of “state intervention”transcends the “state” that exists https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1346287751537147905

the Capitol is defined by petit vs big bourgeois conflicts. so you have suburbanite legislators torpedoing land use bills and invoking left arguments even when the CAA & CAR supports, and also the CAA & CAR torpedoing tenants’ rights and invoking “pro-housing” rhetoric in turn.

and quite frankly I still don’t think that most of CA Housing Twitter gets that this is the game. (again, not the OP, who does)

ppl with power invoke & exploit whatever rhetoric they want, mix & match like the CAA calling tenant protections “anti-supply” then asking for “tech bro” means tests on eviction protections during the pandemic. or the mayor of Beverly Hills talking about “decommodification”

the cooption of good arguments isn’t a reason to dismiss the arguments themselves, it’s a tentative sign of those arguments gaining a foothold in politics to the point that they can be misused by people in power and we all have to deal with that. including you, the Urbanists

stop acting like there’s only a “left NIMBY alliance” and landlords & realtors don’t use supply arguments against tenants the EXACT same way suburbanites clumsily try to talk about “decommodification.” I have to hear both those sides every day lol. I’m no fool. neither are you

if you don’t get my frustration with Urbanism Twitter or Atlantic thinkpieces, it’s because you don’t have to debate landlord flacks on how common sense just-cause protections against eviction or tenants’ right to organize or rent caps “hurt the housing supply”

but I do

realtors & landlords “side with” urbanists on land use bills and then kill tenant protections the same way suburbanites “side with” tenant groups against (some) land use bills but join with the realtors and landlords to kill tenant protections

it cuts both ways, OWN IT PLS

don’t act pure when you spend time dunking on DSA advocating for social housing as “vaporware” & us electing councilmembers across the state, instead of calling in your own land use allies in real estate enabling pandemic evictions. play stupid games, win stupid prizes

anyway the OP is right, we need to take control away from Balkanized municipal segregationism, but as the OP also has argued for, we also need to deliver that control to a legislature that does not throw tenants under the bus