And one theory might be that Angelenos are allergic to cold, explaining why AC isn’t universal in the hellhole of a state.
My take on this was that this is probably anti-market norms meeting the reality of the-economic-rent-is-too-damn-high: the lack of fridge is essentially a stealth rent increase, which brings LA (where everyone wants to live) rents into the market-clearing equilibrium where landlords extract the rent of living in LA. As long as people react with furious anti-market ranting and raving to rents being nominally increased by $X/total (see eg Red Cross) to pay for >$X of benefits from freaking fridges being installed as is sane & done everywhere else, they are locked in the worse equilibrium of no-fridge: any landlord which tries to install fridges will be punished mercilessly by either losses or tenants. The only way out is if rents fall enough that landlords start trying to put in fridges as a ‘bonus’, which there are hints towards the end of the pandemic doing. Given how rents in major cities are bouncing back, I expect this norm is probably going to persist, unfortunately.
My take on this was that this is probably anti-market norms meeting the reality of the-economic-rent-is-too-damn-high: the lack of fridge is essentially a stealth rent increase, which brings LA (where everyone wants to live) rents into the market-clearing equilibrium where landlords extract the rent of living in LA. As long as people react with furious anti-market ranting and raving to rents being nominally increased by $X/total (see eg Red Cross) to pay for >$X of benefits from freaking fridges being installed as is sane & done everywhere else, they are locked in the worse equilibrium of no-fridge: any landlord which tries to install fridges will be punished mercilessly by either losses or tenants. The only way out is if rents fall enough that landlords start trying to put in fridges as a ‘bonus’, which there are hints towards the end of the pandemic doing. Given how rents in major cities are bouncing back, I expect this norm is probably going to persist, unfortunately.