Thanks surveyor and CA renter for some excellent explanations of mechanisms for changes in rent, including some driven by speculation in other parts of the economy. I believe that all of these are inherently supply/demand related. Though some mechanisms are caused by other bubbles (excessive speculation).
So, I agree that rents may be driven upward by speculation or excesses in other parts of the economy (e.g. excessive jobs created by venture capital during the dot-com boom), but there really is no rent bubble, in the same sense that there was a stock bubble in the late 1990’s and real estate bubble in the mid 2000’s.