The concept of rent control, once found mostly in large cities, is spreading to the Bay Area’s suburbs, even though virtually every economist thinks it’s a bad idea.

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Six Bay Area cities have measures on the November ballot that would protect existing tenants from the stratospheric rent increases that are a result of job growth far outstripping housing creation.

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Juliet Brodie, who directs the Stanford Community Law Clinic and helped draft what became Measure V in Mountain View, acknowledges that rent control, like any public policy, has shortcomings. “What it prevents is landlords evicting moderate-income tenants and replacing them with people paying twice as much,” she said. “I would be perfectly happy to tolerate lucky Google employees who decided to lease up at the right time and have $1,700 (a month) rent to protect families who are being kicked out in the middle of the school year.”