Apartments are a very nearly perfect market. There's usually sufficient supply to meet demand. So the price you get as rent reflects a point on the curve reasonably undistorted by various external effects.

My guess is that what you perceive as a $2k-$3k/mo apartment is inferior in some meaningful dimension to the target renters. Do those rents really exist, or are they rents being paid by people who signed leases 10 years ago and don't have landlords intent on maximizing annual increases? Are they in older buildings with no air conditioning or bad wiring or bad internet or bad plumbing? Are they in neighborhoods with more crime? What are the other amenties in those buildings - are there gyms, pools, colocated services like dry cleaning, pet care, restaurants, florists, etc?