Population, Rent

Andrea Rosenwein, in a Dec. 17 commentary (“L.A. Renters: Condemned to Extinction?” Editorial Page), bemoaned circumstances that forced her to join the “real word (of) exorbitant rents.” However, this followed years of enjoying artificially low housing costs. An acknowledgement that the law (rent control, for example) can fix the price but not the cost of a commodity would have shown more real world awareness.

Los Angeles is a mega-city beginning an explosive increase in population density; spacious lodgings in a desirable neighborhood in such a city are not easily had, particularly by those with low incomes. Most, like myself, wind up east or south of her neck of the woods, in whatever midway between splendor and squalor they can manage.

There are 5 billion people in the world. If Rosenwein stopped worrying exclusively about developers and considered how many others would like to be where she is, the cost of her desired life style would be more explicable.

LEE RANKIN PORTER

Los Angeles