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This seems like an overly critical article. Zoning laws and NIMBY impulses should be fought tooth-and-nail and I'm glad Airbnb is doing so. The platform has all

This seems like an overly critical article. Zoning laws and NIMBY impulses should be fought tooth-and-nail and I'm glad Airbnb is doing so. The platform has allowed me to actually enjoy travel in ways I never could before. What I feel like is missing is a communication path from the community to the platform. Because people start by calling the police to complain it immediately becomes a legal and local ordinance issue. If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly, or if local police were instructed to contact them, the platform could better regulate itself.

duxup 8y ago
>If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly, or if local police were instructed to contact them, the platform could better regulate itself. I don't think Airbnb really cares to do that... and that kinda is where the problems start in terms of what Airbnb is really all about.
- iandanforth 8y ago
  Hrm ... ok here's a specific change I'd like to see they have a "neighbors" portal. But if you try to input a complaint it's hard to find a listing nearby and they say "If you can’t find the listing’s web address, enter the street address and we’ll try to locate the listing. In order to protect our hosts’ privacy, we won’t be able to confirm the existence of any Airbnb listings or follow up with you." This supports your point and should be changed.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Kind of amusing they hide it that way, seems like a good way to get AROUND any local zoning or anyone to identify folks who are buying up units wholesale to rent them out.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  I'm the absolute last person to think that tech can be trusted to regulate itself for anything. We've seen how companies like Amazon and eBay cater to their power sellers, how social media caters to its advertisers, &c. &c. It would be delightful if AirBnB were to be the exception, but as Reagan(?) said, "Trust, but verify." Who does the verifying if we remove local government from oversight?
  - duxup 8y ago
    Yeah I agree. 1. I don't think Airbnb cares to do it at all. 2. It would be a very hard job even if they tried to do it.
- evilotto 8y ago
  It's funny how all the "disruptive" startups have the same basic business model of taking money away from someone who was getting it before (generally local governments, but that cascades to many other people like medallion holders); giving some of that money to the customers and call it a discount, and keeping the rest of it for themselves.
  - duxup 8y ago
    There very much is a pattern there isn't there.... Also wonder how many of them structurally work to disrupt themselves into a sort of untenable situation. Like can Facebook exist at its scale ... and not sell everyone's data or just behave as it does? Can gig economy companies exist without grabbing into tips / passing risk off onto delivery people? I don't know.
braythwayt 8y ago
Why should zoning laws be fought tooth-and-nail? If I buy a house in a neighbourhood full of single-family dwellings that are all one and two storeys high, should I be able to build a condo building on my land? Can I open a nightclub in my house? What about parking? Can I pave my front lawn and rent the space out as parking spots? Or maybe put a dumpster there for local businesses to put their trash in? There's a tree on my boulevard. Can I cut the tree down and park a truck on the boulevard? I decided to run a grow-op in my house. When I turn the electricity on, the lights fade in my neighbours houses because the load on my grow-up is so much bigger than the equipment is designed to support. Tough luck for my neighbours, correct?
- iandanforth 8y ago
  Mostly correct. US zoning laws in particular are responsible for urban sprawl, separation of services from housing and the massive environmental impact that produces. Default mixed use is demonstrably more efficient use of land. Cleaver neighborhoods are toxic.
  - tzs 8y ago
    > US zoning laws in particular are responsible for urban sprawl [...] Houston managed an impressive urban sprawl without zoning laws.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      Houston has zoning laws - they mandate parking for example. The laws are generally more lax than other places, but some of their mandates encourage sprawl.
    - asdff 8y ago
      Just because you are allowed to build 100 stories into the heavens doesn't mean you will when its cheaper to build flat across an empty swath of land. When you hit capacity on that empty swath of land, like in the LA basin, but aren't allowed to build high to meet demand, like in the LA basin, then you have a supply problem. Imagine the mess that NY would have looked like if Manhattan was limited to single family homes. The city would sprawl across half of NY, NJ, and CT easy.
skrebbel 8y ago
> If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly, or if local police were instructed to contact them, the platform could better regulate itself. And the fact that they don't have a feature for this shows that they don't care. They just think that a few lawsuits here and there are cheaper than adequately dealing with community complaints.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>Because people start by calling the police to complain it immediately becomes a legal and local ordinance issue. That's because in the kind of "upscale but not too upscale" kinds of places where AirBnB tends to flourish conflict resolution is such a lost art that calling the police on each other is what people do.
- dahdum 8y ago
  I'm calling the police well before I walk over to the Miami Beach apartment blasting music at 3AM, likely filled with coked up aggressive young men. Simple conflict resolution works great with reasonable people, but those aren't the kinds of people blasting techno and screaming all through the night.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Simple conflict resolution works great with reasonable people, but those aren't the kinds of people blasting techno and screaming all through the night. It may even be that more often than not, it is people where simole interaction would suffice on an individual basis, but there are two factors that still weigh in favor of summoning law enforcement: (1) The social context of one where any individual you deal with would lose face by backing down to anyone without compulsory power, and (2) Even if the above was not sufficient to tip the odds to “most probably individual interaction will not be productive”, the potential cost of interaction with “coked up aggressive young men” or the like doesn't require a very high probability that that is the scenario before it becomes an unacceptable risk even if the expected net benefit of individual interaction is positive.
cronix 8y ago
> What I feel like is missing is a communication path from the community to the platform. Why? The issue is between the homeowner and the community. The fact that they're using AirBnB or anything else is irrelevant. The homeowner is responsible for what occurs on their property, and the community has a right to set standards via HOA's, city/local ordinances, etc. The communication path should be between the property owner and AirBnB to discuss issues with their private contracts/arrangements/deals.
clumpthump 8y ago
>If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly They have made plenty clear that they don't really care about how people near the rental unit are affected. They will never make this happen unless "NIMBY impulses" put enough pressure on them to do so.
temp23894 8y ago
You're confusing "let's build more residential housing for residents" with "let's open up homes meant for full-time residents to transient visitors."

duxup 8y ago

>If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly, or if local police were instructed to contact them, the platform could better regulate itself. I don't think Airbnb really cares to do that... and that kinda is where the problems start in terms of what Airbnb is really all about.

iandanforth 8y ago
Hrm ... ok here's a specific change I'd like to see they have a "neighbors" portal. But if you try to input a complaint it's hard to find a listing nearby and they say "If you can’t find the listing’s web address, enter the street address and we’ll try to locate the listing. In order to protect our hosts’ privacy, we won’t be able to confirm the existence of any Airbnb listings or follow up with you." This supports your point and should be changed.
- duxup 8y ago
  Kind of amusing they hide it that way, seems like a good way to get AROUND any local zoning or anyone to identify folks who are buying up units wholesale to rent them out.
braythwayt 8y ago
I'm the absolute last person to think that tech can be trusted to regulate itself for anything. We've seen how companies like Amazon and eBay cater to their power sellers, how social media caters to its advertisers, &c. &c. It would be delightful if AirBnB were to be the exception, but as Reagan(?) said, "Trust, but verify." Who does the verifying if we remove local government from oversight?
- duxup 8y ago
  Yeah I agree. 1. I don't think Airbnb cares to do it at all. 2. It would be a very hard job even if they tried to do it.
evilotto 8y ago
It's funny how all the "disruptive" startups have the same basic business model of taking money away from someone who was getting it before (generally local governments, but that cascades to many other people like medallion holders); giving some of that money to the customers and call it a discount, and keeping the rest of it for themselves.
- duxup 8y ago
  There very much is a pattern there isn't there.... Also wonder how many of them structurally work to disrupt themselves into a sort of untenable situation. Like can Facebook exist at its scale ... and not sell everyone's data or just behave as it does? Can gig economy companies exist without grabbing into tips / passing risk off onto delivery people? I don't know.

braythwayt 8y ago

Why should zoning laws be fought tooth-and-nail? If I buy a house in a neighbourhood full of single-family dwellings that are all one and two storeys high, should I be able to build a condo building on my land? Can I open a nightclub in my house? What about parking? Can I pave my front lawn and rent the space out as parking spots? Or maybe put a dumpster there for local businesses to put their trash in? There's a tree on my boulevard. Can I cut the tree down and park a truck on the boulevard? I decided to run a grow-op in my house. When I turn the electricity on, the lights fade in my neighbours houses because the load on my grow-up is so much bigger than the equipment is designed to support. Tough luck for my neighbours, correct?

iandanforth 8y ago
Mostly correct. US zoning laws in particular are responsible for urban sprawl, separation of services from housing and the massive environmental impact that produces. Default mixed use is demonstrably more efficient use of land. Cleaver neighborhoods are toxic.
- tzs 8y ago
  > US zoning laws in particular are responsible for urban sprawl [...] Houston managed an impressive urban sprawl without zoning laws.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    Houston has zoning laws - they mandate parking for example. The laws are generally more lax than other places, but some of their mandates encourage sprawl.
  - asdff 8y ago
    Just because you are allowed to build 100 stories into the heavens doesn't mean you will when its cheaper to build flat across an empty swath of land. When you hit capacity on that empty swath of land, like in the LA basin, but aren't allowed to build high to meet demand, like in the LA basin, then you have a supply problem. Imagine the mess that NY would have looked like if Manhattan was limited to single family homes. The city would sprawl across half of NY, NJ, and CT easy.

skrebbel 8y ago

> If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly, or if local police were instructed to contact them, the platform could better regulate itself. And the fact that they don't have a feature for this shows that they don't care. They just think that a few lawsuits here and there are cheaper than adequately dealing with community complaints.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>Because people start by calling the police to complain it immediately becomes a legal and local ordinance issue. That's because in the kind of "upscale but not too upscale" kinds of places where AirBnB tends to flourish conflict resolution is such a lost art that calling the police on each other is what people do.

dahdum 8y ago
I'm calling the police well before I walk over to the Miami Beach apartment blasting music at 3AM, likely filled with coked up aggressive young men. Simple conflict resolution works great with reasonable people, but those aren't the kinds of people blasting techno and screaming all through the night.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Simple conflict resolution works great with reasonable people, but those aren't the kinds of people blasting techno and screaming all through the night. It may even be that more often than not, it is people where simole interaction would suffice on an individual basis, but there are two factors that still weigh in favor of summoning law enforcement: (1) The social context of one where any individual you deal with would lose face by backing down to anyone without compulsory power, and (2) Even if the above was not sufficient to tip the odds to “most probably individual interaction will not be productive”, the potential cost of interaction with “coked up aggressive young men” or the like doesn't require a very high probability that that is the scenario before it becomes an unacceptable risk even if the expected net benefit of individual interaction is positive.

cronix 8y ago

> What I feel like is missing is a communication path from the community to the platform. Why? The issue is between the homeowner and the community. The fact that they're using AirBnB or anything else is irrelevant. The homeowner is responsible for what occurs on their property, and the community has a right to set standards via HOA's, city/local ordinances, etc. The communication path should be between the property owner and AirBnB to discuss issues with their private contracts/arrangements/deals.

clumpthump 8y ago

>If it were easy to report abuses to Airbnb directly They have made plenty clear that they don't really care about how people near the rental unit are affected. They will never make this happen unless "NIMBY impulses" put enough pressure on them to do so.

temp23894 8y ago

You're confusing "let's build more residential housing for residents" with "let's open up homes meant for full-time residents to transient visitors."