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How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / wor

How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / work / visit? It seems to me that AirBNB isn't to blame for the overall lack of housing (and temporary housing aka hostel/hotel) options, rather it's just the most visible brand name competing for the limited supply. Cities can ban it if they want, but I'd rather they focused on allowing more housing to be built.

nerdponx 8y ago
Unless there wasn't, and now there is because of Airbnb. Or an existing shortage was exacerbated by Airbnb.
- burlesona 8y ago
  I understand what you're saying but that doesn't contradict my point. If the appearance of AirBNB suddenly causes a housing shortage than there was presumably a lot of pent up demand for hotel-type space in the market that was being artificially restricted by hotel regulations, and the regional housing supply was fragile in the face of increased demand. Across the world right now most major cities are struggling in the face of growth, but it doesn't really make sense that they should be. I live in San Francisco where housing supply is critically low, but our annual growth rate is only around 1%. It's deeply concerning that our institutions crumble and in the face of a 1% annual growth rate.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    hotel-type space in the market that was being artificially restricted by hotel regulations is not the same as housing.
- dcosson 8y ago
  For a quick order of magnitude comparison, taking SF as an example - as near I can find, there are somewhere between 5k and 10k airbnb listings in the whole bay area. But to be very conservative let's assume 10k and assume they're all in SF itself. Well between 2010 and 2015 SF added 150k more jobs than housing units. Meaning to get back to 2010 levels of affodability SF would have to add on the order of 150k more housing units (and that has probably grown even worse in the past 3 years since 2015). Airbnb is unfortunately just a drop in the bucket.
pastor_elm 8y ago
The root cause is that in many ways, housing is subsidized and cheaper. Airbnb takes advantage of that to undercut the hotel industry.
- zip1234 8y ago
  People use AirBnB not just for the price. I've used it before to get a more authentic experience when traveling. The places generally vary a lot more in capacity (IE not just 2-4 per room). For a family with smaller children, renting out a small apartment for a weekend is much nicer than a tiny hotel room on the nth floor of some homogeneous building. I think many hotels can't compete because they cannot provide the variety of options that AirBnB provides.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  I'm not alone in my dislike for hotels.
eerwrq 8y ago
> Cities can ban it if they want, but I'd rather they focused on allowing more housing to be built. Why not do both?
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  One is mostly helpful (building housing) and one is mostly detrimental (banning airbnb).
  - eerwrq 8y ago
    How is banning AirBnB detrimental to the housing problem if it's also contributing to the lack of housing supply?
    - neom 8y ago
      Indirectly: AirBnB can make buying a house more affordable by providing passive income to the home owner that could in theory be used towards mortgage payments etc.
    - jonny_eh 8y ago
      Banning Airbnb can be detrimental to the local economy, as well as the freedom for residents to do what they want with their property.
cortesoft 8y ago
Wait, how would this solve ANY of the problems mentioned in the article? Most of the issues they talked about were simply caused by having a bunch of tourists living with the people (in fact, 'over tourism' was one of the mentioned problems, along with harassment and loudness from guests). Building more places for these tourists to stay isn't going to solve the problem of having too many tourists in a city.
- burlesona 8y ago
  My impression reading the article was that the primary problem is affordability and AirBNB units competing for housing space. The remainder, about the problems of tourism in general, seem like a pro/con situation that has always been an issue in popular tourist destinations, and AirBNB is just the latest highly visible participant in it. It seems likely that AirBNB has helped make tourism more popular, but that trend was already going strong before AirBNB and probably would be without it as well.
- jeffbax 8y ago
  AirBNB could not exist and all our cities would still have severe housing shortages. It's a scapegoat, the real problem is lack of supply, which is a zoning regulatory issue. Zoning prevents building the stock needed (or things like making styles of homes like multi-family illegal), so AirBNB may be an irritation to it, but its far from the root problem. https://www.dataforprogress.org/housing/ https://www.dataforprogress.org/housing/ > Without abolishing apartment bans we are left with very little space in growing cities to place social housing. Let’s say we raise taxes on the rich as much as we dream, and set about to build social housing apartments. Right now, apartments – market rate or not – are illegal in much of the useable land in American cities (only 17% of Seattle’s buildable land allows apartments, for instance). Where will we put the new social housing if apartment bans remain? (And it will take years to build the social housing we need; in the meantime let’s at least build some places for middle class and working class people to live.)
ritchiea 8y ago
It's not just a lack of housing. Airbnb is changing neighborhoods by creating increased demand for vacation friendly activities and turning some areas into an effective full time weekend. It's taking popular neighborhoods like the Mission in SF or Williamsburg in Brooklyn or the Gothic quarter in Barcelona and turning them into 365 day a year tourist parties. Any neighborhood with a reputation for being hip, having art, music, bars etc. is now half populated by Airbnb guests at all times.
- nix0n 8y ago
  > Any neighborhood with a reputation for being hip, having art, music, bars etc. is now half populated by Airbnb guests at all times Why are there so few of these places?
  - 0x4f3759df 8y ago
    That's a bit of a reduction. More like 'Any neighborhood in a world class city with a reputation ...' Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City could develop cool areas, but probably won't be overrun by AirBnB tourists.
  - forgottenpass 8y ago
    They're generally unsustainable. Having a reputation means a deviation from the norm. Once their reputation is big enough, the number of newcomers to the culture will outstrips the ability for the culture to assimilate them. Sustainability in the face of that requires whatever the culture is centered around to be the kind of thing that can both put up a facade that serve casuals and angry neighbors, while simultaneously maintaining an environment for the core that built it to retain momentum. And circumstance might just make that impossible.
    - jdmichal 8y ago
      There's a piece that covers this pretty well: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths Last posted on HN 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433487
tropo 8y ago
Since we can not all fit in "places people want to live / work / visit", the only viable solution is to change that. Other places need to be made more desirable. (as needed, add: cell towers, an airport, a high school, and a hospital) People need to move.
the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
> How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / work / visit? There is plenty of housing in many cities where Airbnb is detrimental to the quality of life. We have an Airbnb flat in our building and we had one in the last one I was in. In both cases we had breakins, damage done to the house, garbage left etc. We're in a residential, non-touristy area. Both those airbnb flats in question were not welcome by renders or owners in the house.
babesh 8y ago
The problem is a tragedy of the commons. If you build a giant box in the Las Ramblas, you reap the benefits but worsen the neighborhood for others. If everyone does that, you have destroyed Las Ramblas.
bashmydotfiles 8y ago
That's right AirBNB isn't to blame for the overall lack of housing - but it is to blame for pushing people out of housing. Landlords can make much more money if they kick out all of their tenants and rent to people on AirBNB - effectively turning the property they own into a hotel. The long term solution for this is to have more housing, but that isn't going to fix the problem that many face currently. I think the best course of action to take right now is to put laws in place that restrict AirBNB in some ways. For example, this recently happened in Boston: https://boston.curbed.com/2018/6/13/17460760/boston-airbnb-regulations-what-are-rules https://boston.curbed.com/2018/6/13/17460760/boston-airbnb-r... These new regulations makes it so that AirBNB "Hotels" would be impossible. Of course it /does/ screw over an individual that would possibly want to rent their apartment out while they're away, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. Namely, if you're able to afford a single person apartment in Boston - you're probably more well off than other people in Boston, so you probably don't need the extra income provided by AirBNB anyway.

nerdponx 8y ago

Unless there wasn't, and now there is because of Airbnb. Or an existing shortage was exacerbated by Airbnb.

burlesona 8y ago
I understand what you're saying but that doesn't contradict my point. If the appearance of AirBNB suddenly causes a housing shortage than there was presumably a lot of pent up demand for hotel-type space in the market that was being artificially restricted by hotel regulations, and the regional housing supply was fragile in the face of increased demand. Across the world right now most major cities are struggling in the face of growth, but it doesn't really make sense that they should be. I live in San Francisco where housing supply is critically low, but our annual growth rate is only around 1%. It's deeply concerning that our institutions crumble and in the face of a 1% annual growth rate.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  hotel-type space in the market that was being artificially restricted by hotel regulations is not the same as housing.
dcosson 8y ago
For a quick order of magnitude comparison, taking SF as an example - as near I can find, there are somewhere between 5k and 10k airbnb listings in the whole bay area. But to be very conservative let's assume 10k and assume they're all in SF itself. Well between 2010 and 2015 SF added 150k more jobs than housing units. Meaning to get back to 2010 levels of affodability SF would have to add on the order of 150k more housing units (and that has probably grown even worse in the past 3 years since 2015). Airbnb is unfortunately just a drop in the bucket.

pastor_elm 8y ago

The root cause is that in many ways, housing is subsidized and cheaper. Airbnb takes advantage of that to undercut the hotel industry.

zip1234 8y ago
People use AirBnB not just for the price. I've used it before to get a more authentic experience when traveling. The places generally vary a lot more in capacity (IE not just 2-4 per room). For a family with smaller children, renting out a small apartment for a weekend is much nicer than a tiny hotel room on the nth floor of some homogeneous building. I think many hotels can't compete because they cannot provide the variety of options that AirBnB provides.
WalterSear 8y ago
I'm not alone in my dislike for hotels.

eerwrq 8y ago

> Cities can ban it if they want, but I'd rather they focused on allowing more housing to be built. Why not do both?

jonny_eh 8y ago
One is mostly helpful (building housing) and one is mostly detrimental (banning airbnb).
- eerwrq 8y ago
  How is banning AirBnB detrimental to the housing problem if it's also contributing to the lack of housing supply?
  - neom 8y ago
    Indirectly: AirBnB can make buying a house more affordable by providing passive income to the home owner that could in theory be used towards mortgage payments etc.
  - jonny_eh 8y ago
    Banning Airbnb can be detrimental to the local economy, as well as the freedom for residents to do what they want with their property.

cortesoft 8y ago

Wait, how would this solve ANY of the problems mentioned in the article? Most of the issues they talked about were simply caused by having a bunch of tourists living with the people (in fact, 'over tourism' was one of the mentioned problems, along with harassment and loudness from guests). Building more places for these tourists to stay isn't going to solve the problem of having too many tourists in a city.

burlesona 8y ago
My impression reading the article was that the primary problem is affordability and AirBNB units competing for housing space. The remainder, about the problems of tourism in general, seem like a pro/con situation that has always been an issue in popular tourist destinations, and AirBNB is just the latest highly visible participant in it. It seems likely that AirBNB has helped make tourism more popular, but that trend was already going strong before AirBNB and probably would be without it as well.
jeffbax 8y ago
AirBNB could not exist and all our cities would still have severe housing shortages. It's a scapegoat, the real problem is lack of supply, which is a zoning regulatory issue. Zoning prevents building the stock needed (or things like making styles of homes like multi-family illegal), so AirBNB may be an irritation to it, but its far from the root problem. https://www.dataforprogress.org/housing/ https://www.dataforprogress.org/housing/ > Without abolishing apartment bans we are left with very little space in growing cities to place social housing. Let’s say we raise taxes on the rich as much as we dream, and set about to build social housing apartments. Right now, apartments – market rate or not – are illegal in much of the useable land in American cities (only 17% of Seattle’s buildable land allows apartments, for instance). Where will we put the new social housing if apartment bans remain? (And it will take years to build the social housing we need; in the meantime let’s at least build some places for middle class and working class people to live.)

ritchiea 8y ago

It's not just a lack of housing. Airbnb is changing neighborhoods by creating increased demand for vacation friendly activities and turning some areas into an effective full time weekend. It's taking popular neighborhoods like the Mission in SF or Williamsburg in Brooklyn or the Gothic quarter in Barcelona and turning them into 365 day a year tourist parties. Any neighborhood with a reputation for being hip, having art, music, bars etc. is now half populated by Airbnb guests at all times.

nix0n 8y ago
> Any neighborhood with a reputation for being hip, having art, music, bars etc. is now half populated by Airbnb guests at all times Why are there so few of these places?
- 0x4f3759df 8y ago
  That's a bit of a reduction. More like 'Any neighborhood in a world class city with a reputation ...' Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City could develop cool areas, but probably won't be overrun by AirBnB tourists.
- forgottenpass 8y ago
  They're generally unsustainable. Having a reputation means a deviation from the norm. Once their reputation is big enough, the number of newcomers to the culture will outstrips the ability for the culture to assimilate them. Sustainability in the face of that requires whatever the culture is centered around to be the kind of thing that can both put up a facade that serve casuals and angry neighbors, while simultaneously maintaining an environment for the core that built it to retain momentum. And circumstance might just make that impossible.
  - jdmichal 8y ago
    There's a piece that covers this pretty well: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths Last posted on HN 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433487

tropo 8y ago

Since we can not all fit in "places people want to live / work / visit", the only viable solution is to change that. Other places need to be made more desirable. (as needed, add: cell towers, an airport, a high school, and a hospital) People need to move.

the_mitsuhiko 8y ago

> How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / work / visit? There is plenty of housing in many cities where Airbnb is detrimental to the quality of life. We have an Airbnb flat in our building and we had one in the last one I was in. In both cases we had breakins, damage done to the house, garbage left etc. We're in a residential, non-touristy area. Both those airbnb flats in question were not welcome by renders or owners in the house.

babesh 8y ago

The problem is a tragedy of the commons. If you build a giant box in the Las Ramblas, you reap the benefits but worsen the neighborhood for others. If everyone does that, you have destroyed Las Ramblas.

bashmydotfiles 8y ago

That's right AirBNB isn't to blame for the overall lack of housing - but it is to blame for pushing people out of housing. Landlords can make much more money if they kick out all of their tenants and rent to people on AirBNB - effectively turning the property they own into a hotel. The long term solution for this is to have more housing, but that isn't going to fix the problem that many face currently. I think the best course of action to take right now is to put laws in place that restrict AirBNB in some ways. For example, this recently happened in Boston: https://boston.curbed.com/2018/6/13/17460760/boston-airbnb-regulations-what-are-rules https://boston.curbed.com/2018/6/13/17460760/boston-airbnb-r... These new regulations makes it so that AirBNB "Hotels" would be impossible. Of course it /does/ screw over an individual that would possibly want to rent their apartment out while they're away, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. Namely, if you're able to afford a single person apartment in Boston - you're probably more well off than other people in Boston, so you probably don't need the extra income provided by AirBNB anyway.