In Austin, TX Airbnb incontrovertibly revealed that hotel room volume was insufficient for demand and was suppressing tourism and its inflow of outside cash. T

In Austin, TX Airbnb incontrovertibly revealed that hotel room volume was insufficient for demand and was suppressing tourism and its inflow of outside cash. The common complaint about insufficient & overpriced hotels stopped being theory and was proved out by an elastic federated supply that _at least initially_ put more money in the hands of private parties. High cost of entry for building hotels in the urban core & decrepit central planning suppressed the cities growth for years. At first hotel companies and their "advocates" complained, but then after they realized it wasn't going to go away, the cranes showed up and started addressing the real problem. I don't know if Airbnb will be forever, but things like it should at least be cyclically introduced to reveal infrastructure and planning failures, then local private parties can solve the problem and profit while planning commissions try to keep up.