28 ms·

Airbnb and Neighborhood Crime

kube-system 5y ago
That's really interesting, I would have expected the opposite -- that Airbnbs increase nuisance crime but not violence, due to the nature of most use of Airbnbs. I wonder if this is measuring a third factor: potentially neighborhoods which are more violent for some other reason are more likely to end up as Airbnbs because of a decreased demand for owner-occupation? Just my personal hypothesis.
- villasv 5y ago
  This bit: > We find evidence that increases in Airbnb listings–but not reviews–led to more violence in neighborhoods in later years. Has me hypothesizing that an increase in listings but not in reviews means an excess of offer. This could be an early indicator of local socioeconomic degradation that ends up with increase in violence as late-stage symptom. The exodus of the well-off (and the listings that they leave behind) could be the missing link to investigate in further studies. One way to test this would be to contrast with the change in property sales and rentals. Some of those who are leaving ought to be selling or renting instead of listing on Airbnb. If only Airbnb listings are going up, then my hypothesis would most likely be false. > neighborhoods which are more violent for some other reason are more likely to end up as Airbnbs This doesn't look to be the case for me because there's a time interval between those. First the Airbnb shows up, years later comes the violence.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    > > neighborhoods which are more violent for some other reason are more likely to end up as Airbnbs > First the Airbnb shows up, years later comes the violence. I didn't necessarily mean that they happened in the order that I wrote, although I can see that was a reasonable way to interpret what I wrote. I meant more along the lines of: a third variable put them on that path to violence whether or not they also became Airbnbs. violence third variable < owners moving out -> airbnbs
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I think it's more like the petty criminals follow the tourists and the travelers (who they can victimize with a cleaner conscience than their neighbors).
  - asdff 5y ago
    You should see these tourists and you will appreciate why they are seen as a mark. Go to miami beach one day or Hollywood. You will see gaggles of guys and gals on vacation near the tourist traps wearing chains, wrist watches, luxury brand clothing, renting exotic cars, carrying cash, acting a fool, getting drunk, getting high, not being aware of their surroundings, not knowing where they are. Its like walking into a jungle filled with tigers and dressing yourself in raw meat.
KallDrexx 5y ago
Is there a reason the word `black` seems to be randomly interspersed in front of words? Was there a find/replace all that went wrong?
- newfriend 5y ago
  Maybe they are trying to evoke Mr. Subliminal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aImzZfXGJ4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aImzZfXGJ4M
- istorical 5y ago
  It almost looks like someone find+replaced 'listing' or 'black listing' with 'blacklisting'. If you replace the word black at the places it doesn't seem to make sense with 'listing' it sort of makes sense I think? ex: "Similarly, arguments against black short-term rentals often hinge" -> "Similarly, arguments against listing short-term rentals often hinge
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Might be formatting leaking from however they prepared the plain text? Black is sometimes a synonym for "bold" in formatting tools. Like a bad cleanup of an OCR or buggy TeX component or something?
cheschire 5y ago
I don’t like the wording here as it asserts causation rather than correlation. Skimming the content, it seems like they do attempt to eliminate potential causes, however I don’t feel convinced. it seems like they’ve just proven correlation better than anecdotal evidence.
blacktriangle 5y ago
My bet is this study has the cause and effect backward, which seems to be supported by the study itself and their reaching for vague claims of breakdown of neighborhoods ability to fend off crime due to social cohesion. My observation based on people I know in Chicago who are renting out Airbnb is that rapidly rising crime and taxes have caused people to want to move, however the same factors motivating them to leave, ie crime and taxes, have made it impossible for them to sell their property. Unable to sell their apartments these people turn to Airbnb rentals to help fund their new homes since rentals to people who don't know the neighborhoods better are the only way to monitize properties in neighborhoods that were already falling apart before Airbnb thanks to Chicago's utterly incompetent and corrupt government. Point being, Airbnb is a symptom of your neighborhood going to shit, not a cause.
- villasv 5y ago
  I agree. It's not like those Airbnb's are popping out of nowhere. People are leaving that neighborhood and an increase of Airbnbs indicate that those leaving are folks that do not need to sell an apartment to go to another one - that is, concentrated capital is leaving the neighborhood. I'd say that the article doesn't get the relation backwards because there's a time lag. I'd say there's a confounding factor causing the capital exodus early on and increase in violence later on. The problem is whatever the rich are inconvenienced by that is making them leave, and it looks like whatever it is it predates reported violent crime.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    > People are leaving that neighborhood and an increase of Airbnbs indicate that those leaving are folks that do not need to sell an apartment to go to another one - that is, concentrated capital is leaving the neighborhood. Source? I know a few people who own AirBnBs and they all decided to buy new properties to rent out. I don't see a reason to expect most AirBnBs used to be residences that the owners fled.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  "Point being, Airbnb is a symptom of your neighborhood going to shit, not a cause." Pretty much all the historical cities and tourist magnets around the world seem to be an exception, unless "becoming even more touristy" === "going to shit".
musingsole 5y ago
> the results point to the possibility that the large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization, and in turn its natural ability of a neighborhood to counteract and discourage crime, specifically violent crime. Further, the lagged effects suggest a long-term erosion of the social organization, which would stand in contrast to the more immediate impacts that the presence of tourists would be expected to have. I believe rentals do this in general. Perhaps short-term are worse. You can't meaningfully invest in a community in <5 years. Airbnb should start a fund get the otherwise incapable into responsible home-ownership. Whatever the negative effects of some short-term units, I'd bet increasing the owner-class would have larger positive ones.
- asveikau 5y ago
  This is an unusual statement. There are a lot of people who rent for a long time. In many places, that's most people.
  - musingsole 5y ago
    I'll reassert my core point: "You can't meaningfully invest in a community in <5 years." Being part of a community is about presence and interaction, not anything about deeds or contracts.
    - asveikau 5y ago
      But people do often stay in rental properties for 5 years and longer, even if the lease initially covers less time.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  > Airbnb should start a fund get the otherwise incapable into responsible home-ownership. Anyone but Airbnb. Local governments, credit unions. Something with at least a bit of democratic accountability. See what they’ve done in Singapore to achieve high home ownership. https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore/ https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-...
foolinaround 5y ago
Tourists don't generally stay in sleepy bedroom communities, they go to where the action is, and probably, those areas have higher violence than the former?
- villasv 5y ago
  > led to more violence in neighborhoods in *later years*
  - lmeyerov 5y ago
    same thing. there can be a latent factor, like it takes awhile for criminals to move from one area to another, so airbnb people aren't the causes but leading indicators for something underneath. this is classic correlation vs causation. it's not hard to come up with alternative latent factor causations like this, which would lead to radically different conclusions than the paper, so I have to wonder if some sort of bias is leaking in -- I have no horse in this race either way, just skimming it seems like sloppy politicized inferences, and disappointed that reviewers didn't force that to be addressed. e.g., the authors came in with opening hypotheses / observations here, and instead of seeking to disprove them (good science), sought to support them w/ p-hacking (bad science). the correlations are interesting, so the science would be to try to break them somehow to narrow down the conclusions, and instead they promote 1 arbitrary interpretation and leave the analysis to future work
reilly3000 5y ago
I read their Discussion and Conclusions and feel they missed an important point: the dynamic of short-term rentals even in quiet, socially-connected neighborhoods is to disarm the vigilance of neighbors. Tight-knit communities look out for each other, and have a sense when things are out-of-place. When short-term rentals invite a stream of tourists, neighbors can’t discern if they are criminals or visitors. It’s like the presence of constant novelty disables the neighborhood’s immune response.
- dontbeabill 5y ago
  100%. we had a tight knit community and no one would dare do an airbnb. but once they got a foothold, and airbnb lawyers started threatening our council (or buying them) we know have 12 in a 2 block radius, direct home sales to out of town investors making airbnb (aka hotels). we lost the battle as the community is now not tight knit, and more people selling to leave
- watwut 5y ago
  You described the community that operates on the assumption that if they dont know you, you are criminal. It is the only way it can work like that. I dont really think it is so valuable. It is what makes people harassed just for walking home or taking random walk.
  - Tostino 5y ago
    Exactly what I was thinking as I read that. I've been harassed when visiting friends who live in neighborhoods like that, and don't see it as a positive trait.
    - reilly3000 5y ago
      Right, I’m with you on that front. The neighborhood watch committee isn’t for me… it’s probably an archaic concept that peaked in the 80’s but still is an instrument of racism in some places today. See also: Ahmaud Arbery. I currently reside in a post-war suburb and it’s not really anything malicious, but there is still that dynamic here in some ways. It’s kept alive mostly by my 82 year old neighbor who is in everyone’s business. I used to see these signs more often: https://nnw.org/sites/default/files/bpslr_150.gif https://nnw.org/sites/default/files/bpslr_150.gif I think those are a relic of the early 90’s fears about crime and gang activity; not so common today.
ipnon 5y ago
Let me give a concrete example. Bed Stuy is a neighborhood in New York City. It is currently facing gentrification, where long term residents (like local shop owners and families) are competing with short term residents (young professionals and tourists). These two forces already competed for rentals, the long term residents controlled the properties. The short term residents are willing to pay a premium in the form of AirBNB to remain in the neighborhood.[a] This can take the form of a young professional staying in an AirBNB for a month while looking for a rental, or a tourist staying in the neighborhood for a few weeks. This has 3 important effects: 1) AirBNB makes money, 2) an apartment that could have been a rental becomes unavailable to long term residents, and 3) the lister of the AirBNB, who is typically a wealthy long term resident of Bed Stuy, makes a profit. The result of these 3 factors is a continuous squeeze on poor, long term residents of Bed Stuy. It comes in the form of an increase in price on their most demanding economic cost: housing. (1) and (3) incentive the continuation of this process. (2) contributes to the downfall of the neighborhood in the form of housing instability. For those who doubt that housing instability contributes to violence, look at the most unstable housing in New York City: the public housing. The wait lists are years long, the applicants are supremely vetted, and felons are generally not allowed. Any yet crime proliferates around the public housing in New York, including in Bed Stuy. edit: [a] The flip side of this AirBNB housing premium is experienced by poor, long term residents in the form of rent increases.
- baby 5y ago
  Love the upside though, I've been traveling during covid and staying one month here and there, and this wouldn't have been possible without AirBnB. I've also used AirBnB to stay for a month in SF while I was looking for apartment in the same neighborhood (not my first time doing this). I can't remember the last time I booked a hotel honestly, unless I was forced by work it must have been a decade.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    It's a great upside for you. It's a huge downside for the people who actually need to live and work in an area. AirBnB is one of the worst things to have happened in some cities (I know Barcelona has reacted quite negatively to it). In Dublin, for instance, the pandemic literally doubled the long-term rental supply as houses/apartments flooded off AirBnB.
duxup 5y ago
I was in a town house association at the time of the housing crisis. It wasn't terrible for this given neighborhood but a number of folks who suddenly couldn't sell wanted to rent. There was a cap on the number of rentals, but it was also discussed that not letting people rent would mean abandoned units, other risks, folks not paying their association dues. And nobody really wanted to shaft anyone who were already likely in a tough spot. So it was decided additional rentals would be allowed upon request. But they had to go through a service that did a background check, no super short term leases were allowed (the rate of folks skipping out on those in the area was super high at the time) and etc. The whole system was operated with much the same idea of the article "the large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization". It worked out pretty well in the end. Only a few foreclosures happened and the number of problem renters was fewer than the original units that were being rented out. After a while those 'excess renting units' sold and things stabilized renting wise.
- ceras 5y ago
  This is common for co-ops in NYC. Co-ops are, more or less, condos where the board has more say, and are much more common than condos in NYC. As an owner, you can typically only rent your unit for up to 2 out of every 5 years, and you cannot rent it out for periods shorter than 1 year to prevent short-term rentals. This keeps the building's occupants very stable, while still giving you some flexibility when life happens. It may also help keep housing costs lower by reducing investor appeal: co-ops are typically cheaper than condos in NYC, though they're also usually older buildings than condos, so apples-to-apples cost comparisons are tough.
ericmcer 5y ago
Why all the hatred on Airbnb? I think the fact that housing is treated as an investment vehicle rather than... a home should be dealt with first. Just walking around my neighborhood you can see who is renting and who owns based on the upkeep and effort put into the property. Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in.
- DeBraid 5y ago
  Likely because of the outliers. If you live in a "nice quiet neighbourhood" and an airbnb party house emerges, everyone freaks out. Horror stories on sites like https://www.airbnbhell.com/ https://www.airbnbhell.com/ are remarkable. Clearly these aren't typical host/guest experiences, but they seem more societally acceptable at hotels vs houses.
  - baby 5y ago
    Interesting, kind of like poverty is acceptable if it's quarantined downtown/in skid row and tenderloin types of districts (or in suburbs in Europe), but if it's in my district then HOLY SHIT.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in. The two are related. Airbnb makes owning investment properties more lucrative. You can generally make more money and you don't have to worry about tenant protection laws that make eviction and raising rent harder for traditional long-term rentals.
- baby 5y ago
  This a million time, I truly believe AirBnB has changed the world for the better. The real problem in the US is that cities are not built for density, and thus are not prepared for tourism. Tourism is usually good from the point of view of people and commerces: it brings money and life to districts.
  - 5y ago
paulsutter 5y ago
Looks like they just made up an explanation, "We of course have not directly tested whether social organization is indeed the intervening variable" > Instead, the results point to the possibility that the large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization, and in turn its natural ability of a neighborhood to counteract and discourage crime, specifically violent crime. Further, the lagged effects suggest a long-term erosion of the social organization, which would stand in contrast to the more immediate impacts that the presence of tourists would be expected to have. We of course have not directly tested whether social organization is indeed the intervening variable, but it seems clear that the issue is not the tourists themselves but something about how the extreme transience of a short-term rental unit fails to contribute to critical neighborhood social dynamics.
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  Or, perhaps, cause and effect are turned upside down here, and AirBnB rentals take place in neighborhoods with less social organization?
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    The study shows that _current_ AirBnB rental units correlate with increased violence _years later_.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
I recently discovered an interesting thing in the Brooklyn housing market. There's a new luxury apartment building that was just built in the last two years in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's right on the park, has harbor and city views, and is very close to desirable neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. When I went to investigate renting an apartment in this building I discovered that the household can't earn more than $156,000/year gross. So that's about a junior/mid-level developer salary in NYC. Why this restriction? That's obviously not a "low income" salary, but just a "relatively" low income salary, given the location and surrounding areas. And then when I investigated similar buildings in the same area of Brooklyn (DUMBO, Downtown BK), I found that a lot of the renters of these luxury apartment units are actually foreign university students especially from China and India. Nothing wrong with that. But now I wonder, are those students qualifying for that Brooklyn Bridge Park building because maybe they report no income and are "just college students"? And a junior web developer in NYC can't get qualified because they earn a salary that might be a little more than that? I don't understand any of this.
- wil421 5y ago
  Absolutely, a junior professional can be risky based on employment opportunities and their desire to move around or even go back to their home state post college. College kids are going to more or less give you a solid year cycle and maybe up to 4 years. Major pluses if they are foreign and have rich parents. Young foreigners are more likely to stay in the same place if it’s safe and desirable, comfort is a good thing (I know I’d be this way if I was living in another country at college age).
tamaharbor 5y ago
Eventually, jurisdictions will start to tax Airbnb rentals like hotels, and a lot of the financial allure will be gone. Problem solved.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

That's really interesting, I would have expected the opposite -- that Airbnbs increase nuisance crime but not violence, due to the nature of most use of Airbnbs. I wonder if this is measuring a third factor: potentially neighborhoods which are more violent for some other reason are more likely to end up as Airbnbs because of a decreased demand for owner-occupation? Just my personal hypothesis.

villasv 5y ago
This bit: > We find evidence that increases in Airbnb listings–but not reviews–led to more violence in neighborhoods in later years. Has me hypothesizing that an increase in listings but not in reviews means an excess of offer. This could be an early indicator of local socioeconomic degradation that ends up with increase in violence as late-stage symptom. The exodus of the well-off (and the listings that they leave behind) could be the missing link to investigate in further studies. One way to test this would be to contrast with the change in property sales and rentals. Some of those who are leaving ought to be selling or renting instead of listing on Airbnb. If only Airbnb listings are going up, then my hypothesis would most likely be false. > neighborhoods which are more violent for some other reason are more likely to end up as Airbnbs This doesn't look to be the case for me because there's a time interval between those. First the Airbnb shows up, years later comes the violence.
- kube-system 5y ago
  > > neighborhoods which are more violent for some other reason are more likely to end up as Airbnbs > First the Airbnb shows up, years later comes the violence. I didn't necessarily mean that they happened in the order that I wrote, although I can see that was a reasonable way to interpret what I wrote. I meant more along the lines of: a third variable put them on that path to violence whether or not they also became Airbnbs. violence third variable < owners moving out -> airbnbs
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I think it's more like the petty criminals follow the tourists and the travelers (who they can victimize with a cleaner conscience than their neighbors).
- asdff 5y ago
  You should see these tourists and you will appreciate why they are seen as a mark. Go to miami beach one day or Hollywood. You will see gaggles of guys and gals on vacation near the tourist traps wearing chains, wrist watches, luxury brand clothing, renting exotic cars, carrying cash, acting a fool, getting drunk, getting high, not being aware of their surroundings, not knowing where they are. Its like walking into a jungle filled with tigers and dressing yourself in raw meat.

KallDrexx 5y ago

Is there a reason the word `black` seems to be randomly interspersed in front of words? Was there a find/replace all that went wrong?

newfriend 5y ago
Maybe they are trying to evoke Mr. Subliminal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aImzZfXGJ4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aImzZfXGJ4M
istorical 5y ago
It almost looks like someone find+replaced 'listing' or 'black listing' with 'blacklisting'. If you replace the word black at the places it doesn't seem to make sense with 'listing' it sort of makes sense I think? ex: "Similarly, arguments against black short-term rentals often hinge" -> "Similarly, arguments against listing short-term rentals often hinge
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
WorldMaker 5y ago
Might be formatting leaking from however they prepared the plain text? Black is sometimes a synonym for "bold" in formatting tools. Like a bad cleanup of an OCR or buggy TeX component or something?

cheschire 5y ago

I don’t like the wording here as it asserts causation rather than correlation. Skimming the content, it seems like they do attempt to eliminate potential causes, however I don’t feel convinced. it seems like they’ve just proven correlation better than anecdotal evidence.

blacktriangle 5y ago

My bet is this study has the cause and effect backward, which seems to be supported by the study itself and their reaching for vague claims of breakdown of neighborhoods ability to fend off crime due to social cohesion. My observation based on people I know in Chicago who are renting out Airbnb is that rapidly rising crime and taxes have caused people to want to move, however the same factors motivating them to leave, ie crime and taxes, have made it impossible for them to sell their property. Unable to sell their apartments these people turn to Airbnb rentals to help fund their new homes since rentals to people who don't know the neighborhoods better are the only way to monitize properties in neighborhoods that were already falling apart before Airbnb thanks to Chicago's utterly incompetent and corrupt government. Point being, Airbnb is a symptom of your neighborhood going to shit, not a cause.

villasv 5y ago
I agree. It's not like those Airbnb's are popping out of nowhere. People are leaving that neighborhood and an increase of Airbnbs indicate that those leaving are folks that do not need to sell an apartment to go to another one - that is, concentrated capital is leaving the neighborhood. I'd say that the article doesn't get the relation backwards because there's a time lag. I'd say there's a confounding factor causing the capital exodus early on and increase in violence later on. The problem is whatever the rich are inconvenienced by that is making them leave, and it looks like whatever it is it predates reported violent crime.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  > People are leaving that neighborhood and an increase of Airbnbs indicate that those leaving are folks that do not need to sell an apartment to go to another one - that is, concentrated capital is leaving the neighborhood. Source? I know a few people who own AirBnBs and they all decided to buy new properties to rent out. I don't see a reason to expect most AirBnBs used to be residences that the owners fled.
inglor_cz 5y ago
"Point being, Airbnb is a symptom of your neighborhood going to shit, not a cause." Pretty much all the historical cities and tourist magnets around the world seem to be an exception, unless "becoming even more touristy" === "going to shit".

musingsole 5y ago

> the results point to the possibility that the large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization, and in turn its natural ability of a neighborhood to counteract and discourage crime, specifically violent crime. Further, the lagged effects suggest a long-term erosion of the social organization, which would stand in contrast to the more immediate impacts that the presence of tourists would be expected to have. I believe rentals do this in general. Perhaps short-term are worse. You can't meaningfully invest in a community in <5 years. Airbnb should start a fund get the otherwise incapable into responsible home-ownership. Whatever the negative effects of some short-term units, I'd bet increasing the owner-class would have larger positive ones.

asveikau 5y ago
This is an unusual statement. There are a lot of people who rent for a long time. In many places, that's most people.
- musingsole 5y ago
  I'll reassert my core point: "You can't meaningfully invest in a community in <5 years." Being part of a community is about presence and interaction, not anything about deeds or contracts.
  - asveikau 5y ago
    But people do often stay in rental properties for 5 years and longer, even if the lease initially covers less time.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
> Airbnb should start a fund get the otherwise incapable into responsible home-ownership. Anyone but Airbnb. Local governments, credit unions. Something with at least a bit of democratic accountability. See what they’ve done in Singapore to achieve high home ownership. https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore/ https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-...

foolinaround 5y ago

Tourists don't generally stay in sleepy bedroom communities, they go to where the action is, and probably, those areas have higher violence than the former?

villasv 5y ago
> led to more violence in neighborhoods in *later years*
- lmeyerov 5y ago
  same thing. there can be a latent factor, like it takes awhile for criminals to move from one area to another, so airbnb people aren't the causes but leading indicators for something underneath. this is classic correlation vs causation. it's not hard to come up with alternative latent factor causations like this, which would lead to radically different conclusions than the paper, so I have to wonder if some sort of bias is leaking in -- I have no horse in this race either way, just skimming it seems like sloppy politicized inferences, and disappointed that reviewers didn't force that to be addressed. e.g., the authors came in with opening hypotheses / observations here, and instead of seeking to disprove them (good science), sought to support them w/ p-hacking (bad science). the correlations are interesting, so the science would be to try to break them somehow to narrow down the conclusions, and instead they promote 1 arbitrary interpretation and leave the analysis to future work

reilly3000 5y ago

I read their Discussion and Conclusions and feel they missed an important point: the dynamic of short-term rentals even in quiet, socially-connected neighborhoods is to disarm the vigilance of neighbors. Tight-knit communities look out for each other, and have a sense when things are out-of-place. When short-term rentals invite a stream of tourists, neighbors can’t discern if they are criminals or visitors. It’s like the presence of constant novelty disables the neighborhood’s immune response.

dontbeabill 5y ago
100%. we had a tight knit community and no one would dare do an airbnb. but once they got a foothold, and airbnb lawyers started threatening our council (or buying them) we know have 12 in a 2 block radius, direct home sales to out of town investors making airbnb (aka hotels). we lost the battle as the community is now not tight knit, and more people selling to leave
watwut 5y ago
You described the community that operates on the assumption that if they dont know you, you are criminal. It is the only way it can work like that. I dont really think it is so valuable. It is what makes people harassed just for walking home or taking random walk.
- Tostino 5y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking as I read that. I've been harassed when visiting friends who live in neighborhoods like that, and don't see it as a positive trait.
  - reilly3000 5y ago
    Right, I’m with you on that front. The neighborhood watch committee isn’t for me… it’s probably an archaic concept that peaked in the 80’s but still is an instrument of racism in some places today. See also: Ahmaud Arbery. I currently reside in a post-war suburb and it’s not really anything malicious, but there is still that dynamic here in some ways. It’s kept alive mostly by my 82 year old neighbor who is in everyone’s business. I used to see these signs more often: https://nnw.org/sites/default/files/bpslr_150.gif https://nnw.org/sites/default/files/bpslr_150.gif I think those are a relic of the early 90’s fears about crime and gang activity; not so common today.

ipnon 5y ago

Let me give a concrete example. Bed Stuy is a neighborhood in New York City. It is currently facing gentrification, where long term residents (like local shop owners and families) are competing with short term residents (young professionals and tourists). These two forces already competed for rentals, the long term residents controlled the properties. The short term residents are willing to pay a premium in the form of AirBNB to remain in the neighborhood.[a] This can take the form of a young professional staying in an AirBNB for a month while looking for a rental, or a tourist staying in the neighborhood for a few weeks. This has 3 important effects: 1) AirBNB makes money, 2) an apartment that could have been a rental becomes unavailable to long term residents, and 3) the lister of the AirBNB, who is typically a wealthy long term resident of Bed Stuy, makes a profit. The result of these 3 factors is a continuous squeeze on poor, long term residents of Bed Stuy. It comes in the form of an increase in price on their most demanding economic cost: housing. (1) and (3) incentive the continuation of this process. (2) contributes to the downfall of the neighborhood in the form of housing instability. For those who doubt that housing instability contributes to violence, look at the most unstable housing in New York City: the public housing. The wait lists are years long, the applicants are supremely vetted, and felons are generally not allowed. Any yet crime proliferates around the public housing in New York, including in Bed Stuy. edit: [a] The flip side of this AirBNB housing premium is experienced by poor, long term residents in the form of rent increases.

baby 5y ago
Love the upside though, I've been traveling during covid and staying one month here and there, and this wouldn't have been possible without AirBnB. I've also used AirBnB to stay for a month in SF while I was looking for apartment in the same neighborhood (not my first time doing this). I can't remember the last time I booked a hotel honestly, unless I was forced by work it must have been a decade.
- dorchadas 5y ago
  It's a great upside for you. It's a huge downside for the people who actually need to live and work in an area. AirBnB is one of the worst things to have happened in some cities (I know Barcelona has reacted quite negatively to it). In Dublin, for instance, the pandemic literally doubled the long-term rental supply as houses/apartments flooded off AirBnB.

duxup 5y ago

I was in a town house association at the time of the housing crisis. It wasn't terrible for this given neighborhood but a number of folks who suddenly couldn't sell wanted to rent. There was a cap on the number of rentals, but it was also discussed that not letting people rent would mean abandoned units, other risks, folks not paying their association dues. And nobody really wanted to shaft anyone who were already likely in a tough spot. So it was decided additional rentals would be allowed upon request. But they had to go through a service that did a background check, no super short term leases were allowed (the rate of folks skipping out on those in the area was super high at the time) and etc. The whole system was operated with much the same idea of the article "the large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization". It worked out pretty well in the end. Only a few foreclosures happened and the number of problem renters was fewer than the original units that were being rented out. After a while those 'excess renting units' sold and things stabilized renting wise.

ceras 5y ago
This is common for co-ops in NYC. Co-ops are, more or less, condos where the board has more say, and are much more common than condos in NYC. As an owner, you can typically only rent your unit for up to 2 out of every 5 years, and you cannot rent it out for periods shorter than 1 year to prevent short-term rentals. This keeps the building's occupants very stable, while still giving you some flexibility when life happens. It may also help keep housing costs lower by reducing investor appeal: co-ops are typically cheaper than condos in NYC, though they're also usually older buildings than condos, so apples-to-apples cost comparisons are tough.

ericmcer 5y ago

Why all the hatred on Airbnb? I think the fact that housing is treated as an investment vehicle rather than... a home should be dealt with first. Just walking around my neighborhood you can see who is renting and who owns based on the upkeep and effort put into the property. Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in.

DeBraid 5y ago
Likely because of the outliers. If you live in a "nice quiet neighbourhood" and an airbnb party house emerges, everyone freaks out. Horror stories on sites like https://www.airbnbhell.com/ https://www.airbnbhell.com/ are remarkable. Clearly these aren't typical host/guest experiences, but they seem more societally acceptable at hotels vs houses.
- baby 5y ago
  Interesting, kind of like poverty is acceptable if it's quarantined downtown/in skid row and tenderloin types of districts (or in suburbs in Europe), but if it's in my district then HOLY SHIT.
AlexandrB 5y ago
> Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in. The two are related. Airbnb makes owning investment properties more lucrative. You can generally make more money and you don't have to worry about tenant protection laws that make eviction and raising rent harder for traditional long-term rentals.
baby 5y ago
This a million time, I truly believe AirBnB has changed the world for the better. The real problem in the US is that cities are not built for density, and thus are not prepared for tourism. Tourism is usually good from the point of view of people and commerces: it brings money and life to districts.
- 5y ago

paulsutter 5y ago

Looks like they just made up an explanation, "We of course have not directly tested whether social organization is indeed the intervening variable" > Instead, the results point to the possibility that the large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization, and in turn its natural ability of a neighborhood to counteract and discourage crime, specifically violent crime. Further, the lagged effects suggest a long-term erosion of the social organization, which would stand in contrast to the more immediate impacts that the presence of tourists would be expected to have. We of course have not directly tested whether social organization is indeed the intervening variable, but it seems clear that the issue is not the tourists themselves but something about how the extreme transience of a short-term rental unit fails to contribute to critical neighborhood social dynamics.

stingraycharles 5y ago
Or, perhaps, cause and effect are turned upside down here, and AirBnB rentals take place in neighborhoods with less social organization?
- dahfizz 5y ago
  The study shows that _current_ AirBnB rental units correlate with increased violence _years later_.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

I recently discovered an interesting thing in the Brooklyn housing market. There's a new luxury apartment building that was just built in the last two years in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's right on the park, has harbor and city views, and is very close to desirable neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. When I went to investigate renting an apartment in this building I discovered that the household can't earn more than $156,000/year gross. So that's about a junior/mid-level developer salary in NYC. Why this restriction? That's obviously not a "low income" salary, but just a "relatively" low income salary, given the location and surrounding areas. And then when I investigated similar buildings in the same area of Brooklyn (DUMBO, Downtown BK), I found that a lot of the renters of these luxury apartment units are actually foreign university students especially from China and India. Nothing wrong with that. But now I wonder, are those students qualifying for that Brooklyn Bridge Park building because maybe they report no income and are "just college students"? And a junior web developer in NYC can't get qualified because they earn a salary that might be a little more than that? I don't understand any of this.

wil421 5y ago
Absolutely, a junior professional can be risky based on employment opportunities and their desire to move around or even go back to their home state post college. College kids are going to more or less give you a solid year cycle and maybe up to 4 years. Major pluses if they are foreign and have rich parents. Young foreigners are more likely to stay in the same place if it’s safe and desirable, comfort is a good thing (I know I’d be this way if I was living in another country at college age).

tamaharbor 5y ago

Eventually, jurisdictions will start to tax Airbnb rentals like hotels, and a lot of the financial allure will be gone. Problem solved.

deleted 5y ago

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