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Barcelona has a population of ~1.7 million. The metro area surrounding is ~5.7 million. The metro area grew by ~100k in the past four years. They are freeing u

Barcelona has a population of ~1.7 million. The metro area surrounding is ~5.7 million. The metro area grew by ~100k in the past four years. They are freeing up ~10,000 houses over the next four years with this legislation. Barcelona built ~15,000 new properties between 2011 and 2020. The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. Housing must be built more quickly than your population is growing to keep prices down, or you must concede that you live in a nice area where people wealthier than you wish to be and that those people are going to gentrify the area and displace locals. It's an unpleasant reality of the world. EDIT: some good feedback in the responses. thanks! I'm being a bit dramatic by saying it's just a drop in the bucket, this action frees up more housing than was built over the same timespan, and it's possible to have effects on pricing greater than what would be inferred by the raw numbers because economics is tricky. cheers.

switch007 2y ago
Politicians being politicians. Seems like each Mayor recently likes to distract everyone and blame the city's housing problem mostly on tourism. Which is easy to do as the city gets a huge number of visitors
isaacremuant 2y ago
It's demagogy and it works.
- jupp0r 2y ago
  The term is populism.
lostlogin 2y ago
For what it’s worth, it’s a little closer than your numbers imply. The city averages 2.51 people per household, so now they just need 75k more houses. https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council/record-number-of-inhabitants-in-barcelona-1663530-people_975363.html https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council...
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  It still doesn't exactly look great that they "just" need ~45 years of house production to have happened yesterday.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    The Airbnb measure fixed a quarter of the problem. That is huge by most standards
    - mutatio 2y ago
      But it's a one time event. What comes next and what if there are negative externalities? It feels like a land grab, the real failure here is a lack of construction, and that isn't the fault of people renting via Airbnb.
  - voisin 2y ago
    Classic governments, failing to do the right thing for decades and then blaming something that makes up a tiny part of the problem to shift blame.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      A government making a regulation that helps the its constituents seems like what it should be doing.
      - voisin 2y ago
        It should have helped its constituents by ensuring homebuilding meets population growth over periods of time, rather than allowing it to be constrained for decades and then point at AirBNB as the source.
        lostlogin 2y ago
        Sort of? By this logic a government can never change its priorities. It’s done something wrong in the past and is trying make up ground now.
FredPret 2y ago
It's about votes, not math. The only solution is for people who can math to learn how to also get votes.
LegitShady 2y ago
10,000 houses on 100k people is actually a substantial portion. I think its totally reasonable. And Airbnb houses that are permanent temp rentals have no special status in law when there's a housing shortage. Building more houses is important, but not incentivizing rental houses and even eliminating them is a good direction, and a significant step towards housing people.
kachapopopow 2y ago
The issue is that the "airbnb" areas drive normal citizens out which during off-seasons drains foot traffic making local shops go out of business which further complicates the problem. Not to mention that most tourists don't even sit around the local area, but rather go to the city attractions. Airbnb and resident housing areas are just not compatible, they have different needs and require different infrastructure. Hotels are built around infrastructure supporting tourism and are much healthier for cities.
- dnissley 2y ago
  Businesses are unable to plan around seasonality? What's up with that? In the US, businesses in touristy areas often will shut down for the slow season.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    It's difficult to make work economically, other than shuttering for part of the year. Which is why tourist resort towns and stadium areas tend to have a lot of closed shops when they're not "on". Which in turn makes them less attractive for year-round residents, which spirals into intensifying seasonality.
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      When I think of places dominated by tourism its not the tourism that did it. Its that the tourism is what is left after little other job growth in any other sector after whatever impetus that triggered building the town in the first places ceased to exist.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        My personal example would be the old Turner Field in Atlanta. Major sports team, but the area was a wasteland, because everything was developed around the 50,000 people flooding in for one afternoon. Parking lots, traffic flow, food stands. The actual neighborhood was pretty dead. Braves move up to a new stadium in Cobb county, some redevelopment, and now the old neighborhood is flourishing. Saw the same as a (briefly) Florida resident. I think it's difficult to establish "normal" development in an area subject to tourism tides, because many of the decisions are mutually exclusive. Either {support tourism} or {support long term residential development}. And money intersects with politics, so eventually one set of interests win out.
pelorat 2y ago
[flagged]
YossarianFrPrez 2y ago
True, and I agree this is nowhere near enough. But wouldn't a "defense in depth" approach be wise? There are no all or nothing solutions, especially when it comes to policy in a large city. Any bit of relief will no doubt likely be welcome.
- SeanAnderson 2y ago
  Yeah, I agree. I think the change is a step in the right direction to address this specific concern. I think there will be some unintended consequences like loss of tourism dollars which will impact small business, but those concerns seem less important to voters. Still, I fear that people generally look to politics for simple, one sentence solutions to problems which take decades to manifest. Barcelona is the 68th densest city in the world. You look at a satellite map and you can see they have a very well planned city layout. It's dense and filled with tall buildings. At some point the only lever left to pull is outright banning of foreigners. I'm not condoning that policy - just trying to highlight the futility of attempting to protect a desirable area from overpopulation.
  - dcgudeman 2y ago
    > At some point the only lever left to pull is outright banning of foreigners. That does not follow at all. If you look at the actual densities Barcelona is 1/3 as dense as the densest city in the world. There is plenty of room to accommodate more housing, they just need to build higher.
pelorat 2y ago
Here in Europe building denser housing is extremely frowned upon by cultural conservatives, who unfortunately are in charge everywhere. That's why there's hardly any high-rises in Europe. Extreme height restrictions combined with extreme regulatory costs is what has lead to this issue. Show a European politician, especially a local one in charge of urban development, an image from Tokyo and they will recoil in horror. Here in Europe everything must be flat and look cultural.
- christkv 2y ago
  Spain is the one the de densest countries if not the densest country in Europe. Most people live in flats in dense cities.
  - ck45 2y ago
    No, it’s not, it’s number 27. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_European_countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_Europ...
    - blahedo 2y ago
      This is really a different notion of "density" than the gp is talking about---it averages over the whole country, including a lot of very empty areas.
      - FactKnower69 2y ago
        Wrong again. Why are France and Germany 2x as dense as Spain and the UK 3x as dense as Spain then?
        jvican 2y ago
        It is most representative to look at the list of densest European cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_proper_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_... As you see, Spain has 12 cities among the top 38 cities in Europe. L'Hospitalet (an urban centre close to Barcelona) is densest than Paris.
cs702 2y ago
[Deleted] See LightHugger's comment and my response below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40753303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40753303]
- LightHugger 2y ago
  This is red-baiting. Every politician is politically motivated and doesn't actually say anything about why it's bad to ensure people have housing and keep out obnoxious airbnb tourists from residential areas. Spooky scary socialists, send shivers down your spine. Free healthcare will shock your soul, seal your deed tonight.
  - cs702 2y ago
    > This is red-baiting. Hmm... Looking at my comment with the benefit of hindsight, I think you're right. While I still think the mayor's decision is... shortsighted, I've deleted my comment, as I no longer think it contributes much to the discussion.
- chimpanzee 2y ago
  They are aware it is not a complete solution. As the article quotes him: > “The measures we have taken will not change the situation in one day. These things take time. But with these measures we are reaching a turning point” While some of the chosen phrasing in the article does read rather ideological, as you quoted, that could just as easily be the bent of the writer. Your comment itself is actually more ideological and unfactual than anything in the article… > In this case, facts and logic, being so inconvenient to ideological and political forces, likely had nothing to do with the decision. Neither OP nor you nor any other commenter thus far has pointed out any factual inaccuracies. And nothing about the measure is illogical since incremental changes are still a step in their desired direction. And how did you determine their “likely” reasoning from a single article alone? Again, as quoted, they are aware their concerns are not fully addressed by this action alone. One can be a political actor and still be factual and logical. Claiming otherwise is illogical and untrue. And doing so to diminish a policy you do not like …well that’s ideological and political.
sangnoir 2y ago
> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. Since this is HN, I was expecting a little more rigor in proving the math not mathing: how many people can be housed in 15 000[1] + 10 000 houses? How small is the drop and how big is the bucket? From sibling comment, average density is 2.51 people per home * 25k houses which works out to 62 750 housed people out of the 100 000 population growth. If my math is correct, that is significantly more than a drop in the bucket, considering the Airbnb component is 40% of that number, or just over 25k people - which is a big drop indeed for a 100k bucket [1] Edit: I later realized your comment has numbers from multiple time windows. Substitute "15 000" with whatever number of houses were built/added in the past 4 years.
- SeanAnderson 2y ago
  The 15k houses were built over 10 years, but the 100k growth is over 4 years. So 4/10ths of 15k ~= 9k/47k housed. I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket. The action frees up more housing than Barcelona built over the same time period. This is good. However, it's still not a long-term solution. This is a one-time action that when taken, and combined with the housing being built, fails to provide for even 50% of the people moving to the city. Voters want a solution that makes living more affordable not just one that makes it less affordable less quickly. As an aside, I think people can become complacent when a one-time solution to a problem lessens the pain momentarily. Suddenly the issue isn't as high of a priority and so the underlying situation continues to exacerbate the problem. What will voters do in a few more years when this lever doesn't exist to pull? Ban all foreigners?
  - jll29 2y ago
    I only hope this does not replace one problem with another: Because Spain's high unemployment, in particular youth unemployment and the construction sector, actions that reduce tourism lead to fewer jobs and less income flowing into the city. I'm not against the measure (last time in Barcelona I was in a hotel and my friends rented an AirBnB apartment instead; they had fun and I had to move hotel rooms because the guy above me flooded the bathtub), and excessive tourism (Barcelona, Edinburgh, Amsterdam all suffer from it) is annoying even putting housing prices and lack of availability to the side, but I just wonder.
Nevermark 2y ago
Pricing isn’t linear on the supply-demand curve. Small marginal improvements in tight supply can result in noticeable price drops. Which would certainly be welcome, even if greater supply still needs to be created.
oliwarner 2y ago
But it's not just supply. The market rate for holiday letting has driven all lets up. Investors jump at a quick 10%. This should depress prices, release rentals and sales. You're right, it's probably not enough, but like many urban centres, central Barcelona isn't that flexible.
pera 2y ago
5.8 million is actually the population of the entire province of Barcelona, the metro area is 3.3 million, and the city 1.6 million: https://www.amb.cat/en/web/area-metropolitana/coneixer-l-area-metropolitana/poblacio https://www.amb.cat/en/web/area-metropolitana/coneixer-l-are... https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=2861 https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=2861
sfifs 2y ago
Pricing moves at margins, not necessarily driven by totals. Ie. Pricing is primarily driven by the immediate demand and supply situation at a given time. Small changes in availability can have a dramatic effect. Good ways to understand this is to look at underlying data of auctions (richest in data) but pretty much any demand supply granular transaction data will show rhis. For eg. this is why small hoarding locally in emerging markets (where giant supermarkets will not immediately or easily truck in containers of products running short) also generates massive profits for traders. Housing is of course a bit more complex - pricing is more sticky on the upside than downside (as home owners don't like to rent for less than before and may let units sit idle etc) and "instant" usually windows over weeks but fundamentally similar mechanics work. As an example, in Singapore, the government raised excise duty for non Singaporeans to purchase housing to 65% when housing became overheated. The number of rich foreigners buying property has always been small in absolute but was growing fast in rate as rich family money and bankers from Hong Kong started flowing to Singapore. Prices and also rentals across all classes of housing, not just the super premium properties favoured by the wealthy came down and people who had been pushed down at the margins into less than their preferred value housing (including ourselves) moved back up.
JeremyNT 2y ago
This reads like the Nirvana Fallacy to me [0]. Will this move solve the problem? No, but what alternative are you comparing it to where it fares so poorly? I suspect even the staunchest proponents of unregulated construction of denser housing would only claim that it mitigates the problems of housing affordability, not that it solves them. This new STR policy could be one of many pieces of the puzzle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
- lamp_book 2y ago
  Also, of course tourism is the first scapegoat. It’s visible, disliked, and inherently not going to stand up for itself. Take it away and people will be forced to confront that it wasn’t the primary problem. Regardless of how effective it is it’s a necessary first step. That said cities across the developed world are struggling with housing, even ones that are not popular with tourists. Why it seems no one can build anymore is what is interesting.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Unregulated construction of denser housing solves housing affordability. It doesnt make housing free, but if we built china style mega towers with minimal regulation housing would be affordable for most people working full time.
  - corinroyal 2y ago
    Yes, let's replicate the model that was a famous disaster for China. Why do people feel the need to pontificate on issues they never bothered to learn about?
pchristensen 2y ago
That will more than double the housing production (1500/yr construction, 2500/yr freed up) during the years it's implemented. This is a finite change that will run out, and more housing will definitely be needed, but imagine the opposite: no new construction for 7 years.
seydor 2y ago
Also airbnbs aren't built/renovated to be family residences
bedobi 2y ago
dunning kruger in full effect here prices are set on the margin this will have an effect on them (and thank you for apparently admitting that possibility after the replies)
leononame 2y ago
Barcelona the metropolitan area has around 3.5 million IIRC. It's the province has 5.3M. The 15k new properties were only built in Barcelona? How many were built in the metropolis area? It's obvious that more housing is needed, but freeing up housing in the city, potentially close to the center, is still a move that might make the city more livable as opposed to building something new in the outskirts.
zrn900 2y ago
> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. The population growth is largely due to rich foreigners moving into the city: "I was born and raised in Barcelona, no longer live there however. I didn't remember how bad it was until I went to visit my family last summer. Me and some friends went to walk around the center and the girl that took our orders at a Pans&Company didn't even know Spanish or Catalan, only English. It was honestly quite depressing. She was surprised we didn't open the conversation with English." https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/comments/1833ub1/comment/kamrzrd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/comments/1833ub1/comment/k... https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-up-with-mass-tourism-barcelona-locals-say-039tourists-go-home039 https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-u... People say that it has become difficult to hear Catalan or Spanish being spoken in the city center and there are waitresses who don't know Spanish. Some started to say that this is not a case of gentrification, but a colonization.
- _zoltan_ 2y ago
  welcome to the real world, I guess, for these people? if your city is cheap by global standards then wealth will move in. it's quite simple really.
- MandieD 2y ago
  The only restaurant/cafe I was better off ordering in German in Berlin one weekend last year was a Turkish bakery.
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  This furthers my thesis that anti-tourism is basically just a dogwhistle/socially acceptable channel for their xenophobia.
  - diggan 2y ago
    Is it xenophobia if the only people they have problem with is the ones who come for some days and behave like assholes, regardless of how they look? I've lived here for more than a decade, I'm not native Catalan or Spanish and never experienced any xenophobia from anyone here.
racional 2y ago
The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. Your retort here simply isn't logical. 10k doesn't fully offset 100k but it's a significant chunk of it, and when supply gets so compressed as to become inelastic, a 10k amelioration (that is also prevented from creeping up to 15k or 20k within a few years) can be quite significant. Plus certain districts are obviously impacted disproportionately compared to others by not just the reduction in housing available but the sheer foot traffic and other blight that comes along with a lopsided rise in tourist accommodations.
EasyMark 2y ago
Assuming your stats hold up then it would seem like politicians are being politicians and blaming someone else for a housing shortage rather than actually directly addressing the issue. It’s easy to distract regular folks by making them angry at Air BnB instead of just working on real solutions.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Everyone wants to legislate free housing for themselves.
NoLinkToMe 2y ago
I think your comment is still fair. 100k population growth isn't the metric I think to focus on as if it's the a measure of total 'new demand', to be compared to 15k new homes as 'new supply'. After all, population growth in cities that are in high-demand like Barcelona is very much also a function of supply. If you magically create 100k affordable homes, you'll find population growth to fill up those homes within a relatively short period (<10y). If you magically remove 100k homes, you'll see population drop. So population growth isn't a complete measure of demand. Rather it just says something about how much the housing stock reasonably can accommodate. If you build nothing, population growth will be minimal, but it doesn't mean all possible demand has been accommodated. It just means there's lots of latent demand that have no homes to move into. It's more sensible to look at the growth of the housing stock verus existing housing stock. I read in this thread: 15k properties built over 10 years (1.5k per year), a metro that has houses 5.7 million people, 2.5 people per home, means there are 2.3 million homes. 1.5k homes per year on 2.3m existing homes means they're adding 0.06% housing stock per year. That simply IS a drop in the bucket. It's peanuts. Most in-demand (capital/a-tier) cities aim to construct at least 1% a year. For example, Amsterdam grew by 15% in the last 10 years, despite very stringent building requirements, green zones that can't be built, height restrictions to protect the character of the inner city, swamp land foundations and various environmental, water & electricity capacity challenges NL is facing right now. So yes, if you're constructing at a fraction of the rate of other in-demand cities, then I would agree that eliminating tourist apartments is a band-aid solution, not a root-cause solution that works in the long term. As for the balance of tourism vs locals, it's a tricky one. I think one thing we shouldn't forget is that 1 tourist apartment creates a lot of meaningful experiences within a year. An average tourist say of about 5 days in a city means that across a 10 year period an apartment can accommodate either one family living there full-time, or 700 different families having a holiday experience in Barcelona. Put differently, these 10 thousand tourist homes that will come on the market, will house 10 thousand households more, and will prevent 700 thousand households from renting them on a 5 day trip to Barcelona, adding only 0.04% to the housing stock (one-time) and changing very little about the economics of housing in Barcelona for (new) locals. It's easy to hate on tourists, but being a tourist can be a wonderful experience, that is meaningful and valuable, and shouldn't just be dismissed as some annoyance to locals. Of course all should be in balance. To speak on a personal note: I live in a city that takes in 20 million tourists a year on a population of less than 1 million, I don't work in tourism and for me it's mostly an annoyance. I definitely think we shouldn't grow the number of tourists anymore in my city, I think the same for Barcelona is true. But I also think it's worthwhile to maintain a big chunk of current tourism, even if it's annoying to me as a local, because I have no monopoly on enjoying my city. We've restricted tourist apartments to renting 30 days a year (the number of days a local is on holiday himself, and rents out his apartment), and I think that's fine. No need to eliminate it altogether though.

switch007 2y ago

Politicians being politicians. Seems like each Mayor recently likes to distract everyone and blame the city's housing problem mostly on tourism. Which is easy to do as the city gets a huge number of visitors

isaacremuant 2y ago

It's demagogy and it works.

jupp0r 2y ago
The term is populism.

lostlogin 2y ago

For what it’s worth, it’s a little closer than your numbers imply. The city averages 2.51 people per household, so now they just need 75k more houses. https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council/record-number-of-inhabitants-in-barcelona-1663530-people_975363.html https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council...

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
It still doesn't exactly look great that they "just" need ~45 years of house production to have happened yesterday.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  The Airbnb measure fixed a quarter of the problem. That is huge by most standards
  - mutatio 2y ago
    But it's a one time event. What comes next and what if there are negative externalities? It feels like a land grab, the real failure here is a lack of construction, and that isn't the fault of people renting via Airbnb.
- voisin 2y ago
  Classic governments, failing to do the right thing for decades and then blaming something that makes up a tiny part of the problem to shift blame.
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    A government making a regulation that helps the its constituents seems like what it should be doing.
    - voisin 2y ago
      It should have helped its constituents by ensuring homebuilding meets population growth over periods of time, rather than allowing it to be constrained for decades and then point at AirBNB as the source.
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        Sort of? By this logic a government can never change its priorities. It’s done something wrong in the past and is trying make up ground now.

FredPret 2y ago

It's about votes, not math. The only solution is for people who can math to learn how to also get votes.

LegitShady 2y ago

10,000 houses on 100k people is actually a substantial portion. I think its totally reasonable. And Airbnb houses that are permanent temp rentals have no special status in law when there's a housing shortage. Building more houses is important, but not incentivizing rental houses and even eliminating them is a good direction, and a significant step towards housing people.

kachapopopow 2y ago

The issue is that the "airbnb" areas drive normal citizens out which during off-seasons drains foot traffic making local shops go out of business which further complicates the problem. Not to mention that most tourists don't even sit around the local area, but rather go to the city attractions. Airbnb and resident housing areas are just not compatible, they have different needs and require different infrastructure. Hotels are built around infrastructure supporting tourism and are much healthier for cities.

dnissley 2y ago
Businesses are unable to plan around seasonality? What's up with that? In the US, businesses in touristy areas often will shut down for the slow season.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  It's difficult to make work economically, other than shuttering for part of the year. Which is why tourist resort towns and stadium areas tend to have a lot of closed shops when they're not "on". Which in turn makes them less attractive for year-round residents, which spirals into intensifying seasonality.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    When I think of places dominated by tourism its not the tourism that did it. Its that the tourism is what is left after little other job growth in any other sector after whatever impetus that triggered building the town in the first places ceased to exist.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      My personal example would be the old Turner Field in Atlanta. Major sports team, but the area was a wasteland, because everything was developed around the 50,000 people flooding in for one afternoon. Parking lots, traffic flow, food stands. The actual neighborhood was pretty dead. Braves move up to a new stadium in Cobb county, some redevelopment, and now the old neighborhood is flourishing. Saw the same as a (briefly) Florida resident. I think it's difficult to establish "normal" development in an area subject to tourism tides, because many of the decisions are mutually exclusive. Either {support tourism} or {support long term residential development}. And money intersects with politics, so eventually one set of interests win out.

pelorat 2y ago

[flagged]

YossarianFrPrez 2y ago

True, and I agree this is nowhere near enough. But wouldn't a "defense in depth" approach be wise? There are no all or nothing solutions, especially when it comes to policy in a large city. Any bit of relief will no doubt likely be welcome.

SeanAnderson 2y ago
Yeah, I agree. I think the change is a step in the right direction to address this specific concern. I think there will be some unintended consequences like loss of tourism dollars which will impact small business, but those concerns seem less important to voters. Still, I fear that people generally look to politics for simple, one sentence solutions to problems which take decades to manifest. Barcelona is the 68th densest city in the world. You look at a satellite map and you can see they have a very well planned city layout. It's dense and filled with tall buildings. At some point the only lever left to pull is outright banning of foreigners. I'm not condoning that policy - just trying to highlight the futility of attempting to protect a desirable area from overpopulation.
- dcgudeman 2y ago
  > At some point the only lever left to pull is outright banning of foreigners. That does not follow at all. If you look at the actual densities Barcelona is 1/3 as dense as the densest city in the world. There is plenty of room to accommodate more housing, they just need to build higher.

pelorat 2y ago

Here in Europe building denser housing is extremely frowned upon by cultural conservatives, who unfortunately are in charge everywhere. That's why there's hardly any high-rises in Europe. Extreme height restrictions combined with extreme regulatory costs is what has lead to this issue. Show a European politician, especially a local one in charge of urban development, an image from Tokyo and they will recoil in horror. Here in Europe everything must be flat and look cultural.

christkv 2y ago
Spain is the one the de densest countries if not the densest country in Europe. Most people live in flats in dense cities.
- ck45 2y ago
  No, it’s not, it’s number 27. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_European_countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_Europ...
  - blahedo 2y ago
    This is really a different notion of "density" than the gp is talking about---it averages over the whole country, including a lot of very empty areas.
    - FactKnower69 2y ago
      Wrong again. Why are France and Germany 2x as dense as Spain and the UK 3x as dense as Spain then?
      - jvican 2y ago
        It is most representative to look at the list of densest European cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_proper_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_... As you see, Spain has 12 cities among the top 38 cities in Europe. L'Hospitalet (an urban centre close to Barcelona) is densest than Paris.

cs702 2y ago

[Deleted] See LightHugger's comment and my response below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40753303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40753303]

LightHugger 2y ago
This is red-baiting. Every politician is politically motivated and doesn't actually say anything about why it's bad to ensure people have housing and keep out obnoxious airbnb tourists from residential areas. Spooky scary socialists, send shivers down your spine. Free healthcare will shock your soul, seal your deed tonight.
- cs702 2y ago
  > This is red-baiting. Hmm... Looking at my comment with the benefit of hindsight, I think you're right. While I still think the mayor's decision is... shortsighted, I've deleted my comment, as I no longer think it contributes much to the discussion.
chimpanzee 2y ago
They are aware it is not a complete solution. As the article quotes him: > “The measures we have taken will not change the situation in one day. These things take time. But with these measures we are reaching a turning point” While some of the chosen phrasing in the article does read rather ideological, as you quoted, that could just as easily be the bent of the writer. Your comment itself is actually more ideological and unfactual than anything in the article… > In this case, facts and logic, being so inconvenient to ideological and political forces, likely had nothing to do with the decision. Neither OP nor you nor any other commenter thus far has pointed out any factual inaccuracies. And nothing about the measure is illogical since incremental changes are still a step in their desired direction. And how did you determine their “likely” reasoning from a single article alone? Again, as quoted, they are aware their concerns are not fully addressed by this action alone. One can be a political actor and still be factual and logical. Claiming otherwise is illogical and untrue. And doing so to diminish a policy you do not like …well that’s ideological and political.

sangnoir 2y ago

> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. Since this is HN, I was expecting a little more rigor in proving the math not mathing: how many people can be housed in 15 000[1] + 10 000 houses? How small is the drop and how big is the bucket? From sibling comment, average density is 2.51 people per home * 25k houses which works out to 62 750 housed people out of the 100 000 population growth. If my math is correct, that is significantly more than a drop in the bucket, considering the Airbnb component is 40% of that number, or just over 25k people - which is a big drop indeed for a 100k bucket [1] Edit: I later realized your comment has numbers from multiple time windows. Substitute "15 000" with whatever number of houses were built/added in the past 4 years.

SeanAnderson 2y ago
The 15k houses were built over 10 years, but the 100k growth is over 4 years. So 4/10ths of 15k ~= 9k/47k housed. I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket. The action frees up more housing than Barcelona built over the same time period. This is good. However, it's still not a long-term solution. This is a one-time action that when taken, and combined with the housing being built, fails to provide for even 50% of the people moving to the city. Voters want a solution that makes living more affordable not just one that makes it less affordable less quickly. As an aside, I think people can become complacent when a one-time solution to a problem lessens the pain momentarily. Suddenly the issue isn't as high of a priority and so the underlying situation continues to exacerbate the problem. What will voters do in a few more years when this lever doesn't exist to pull? Ban all foreigners?
- jll29 2y ago
  I only hope this does not replace one problem with another: Because Spain's high unemployment, in particular youth unemployment and the construction sector, actions that reduce tourism lead to fewer jobs and less income flowing into the city. I'm not against the measure (last time in Barcelona I was in a hotel and my friends rented an AirBnB apartment instead; they had fun and I had to move hotel rooms because the guy above me flooded the bathtub), and excessive tourism (Barcelona, Edinburgh, Amsterdam all suffer from it) is annoying even putting housing prices and lack of availability to the side, but I just wonder.

Nevermark 2y ago

Pricing isn’t linear on the supply-demand curve. Small marginal improvements in tight supply can result in noticeable price drops. Which would certainly be welcome, even if greater supply still needs to be created.

oliwarner 2y ago

But it's not just supply. The market rate for holiday letting has driven all lets up. Investors jump at a quick 10%. This should depress prices, release rentals and sales. You're right, it's probably not enough, but like many urban centres, central Barcelona isn't that flexible.

pera 2y ago

5.8 million is actually the population of the entire province of Barcelona, the metro area is 3.3 million, and the city 1.6 million: https://www.amb.cat/en/web/area-metropolitana/coneixer-l-area-metropolitana/poblacio https://www.amb.cat/en/web/area-metropolitana/coneixer-l-are... https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=2861 https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=2861

sfifs 2y ago

Pricing moves at margins, not necessarily driven by totals. Ie. Pricing is primarily driven by the immediate demand and supply situation at a given time. Small changes in availability can have a dramatic effect. Good ways to understand this is to look at underlying data of auctions (richest in data) but pretty much any demand supply granular transaction data will show rhis. For eg. this is why small hoarding locally in emerging markets (where giant supermarkets will not immediately or easily truck in containers of products running short) also generates massive profits for traders. Housing is of course a bit more complex - pricing is more sticky on the upside than downside (as home owners don't like to rent for less than before and may let units sit idle etc) and "instant" usually windows over weeks but fundamentally similar mechanics work. As an example, in Singapore, the government raised excise duty for non Singaporeans to purchase housing to 65% when housing became overheated. The number of rich foreigners buying property has always been small in absolute but was growing fast in rate as rich family money and bankers from Hong Kong started flowing to Singapore. Prices and also rentals across all classes of housing, not just the super premium properties favoured by the wealthy came down and people who had been pushed down at the margins into less than their preferred value housing (including ourselves) moved back up.

JeremyNT 2y ago

This reads like the Nirvana Fallacy to me [0]. Will this move solve the problem? No, but what alternative are you comparing it to where it fares so poorly? I suspect even the staunchest proponents of unregulated construction of denser housing would only claim that it mitigates the problems of housing affordability, not that it solves them. This new STR policy could be one of many pieces of the puzzle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

lamp_book 2y ago
Also, of course tourism is the first scapegoat. It’s visible, disliked, and inherently not going to stand up for itself. Take it away and people will be forced to confront that it wasn’t the primary problem. Regardless of how effective it is it’s a necessary first step. That said cities across the developed world are struggling with housing, even ones that are not popular with tourists. Why it seems no one can build anymore is what is interesting.
HDThoreaun 2y ago
Unregulated construction of denser housing solves housing affordability. It doesnt make housing free, but if we built china style mega towers with minimal regulation housing would be affordable for most people working full time.
- corinroyal 2y ago
  Yes, let's replicate the model that was a famous disaster for China. Why do people feel the need to pontificate on issues they never bothered to learn about?

pchristensen 2y ago

That will more than double the housing production (1500/yr construction, 2500/yr freed up) during the years it's implemented. This is a finite change that will run out, and more housing will definitely be needed, but imagine the opposite: no new construction for 7 years.

seydor 2y ago

Also airbnbs aren't built/renovated to be family residences

bedobi 2y ago

dunning kruger in full effect here prices are set on the margin this will have an effect on them (and thank you for apparently admitting that possibility after the replies)

leononame 2y ago

Barcelona the metropolitan area has around 3.5 million IIRC. It's the province has 5.3M. The 15k new properties were only built in Barcelona? How many were built in the metropolis area? It's obvious that more housing is needed, but freeing up housing in the city, potentially close to the center, is still a move that might make the city more livable as opposed to building something new in the outskirts.

zrn900 2y ago

> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. The population growth is largely due to rich foreigners moving into the city: "I was born and raised in Barcelona, no longer live there however. I didn't remember how bad it was until I went to visit my family last summer. Me and some friends went to walk around the center and the girl that took our orders at a Pans&Company didn't even know Spanish or Catalan, only English. It was honestly quite depressing. She was surprised we didn't open the conversation with English." https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/comments/1833ub1/comment/kamrzrd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/comments/1833ub1/comment/k... https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-up-with-mass-tourism-barcelona-locals-say-039tourists-go-home039 https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-u... People say that it has become difficult to hear Catalan or Spanish being spoken in the city center and there are waitresses who don't know Spanish. Some started to say that this is not a case of gentrification, but a colonization.

_zoltan_ 2y ago
welcome to the real world, I guess, for these people? if your city is cheap by global standards then wealth will move in. it's quite simple really.
MandieD 2y ago
The only restaurant/cafe I was better off ordering in German in Berlin one weekend last year was a Turkish bakery.
Nasrudith 2y ago
This furthers my thesis that anti-tourism is basically just a dogwhistle/socially acceptable channel for their xenophobia.
- diggan 2y ago
  Is it xenophobia if the only people they have problem with is the ones who come for some days and behave like assholes, regardless of how they look? I've lived here for more than a decade, I'm not native Catalan or Spanish and never experienced any xenophobia from anyone here.

racional 2y ago

The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. Your retort here simply isn't logical. 10k doesn't fully offset 100k but it's a significant chunk of it, and when supply gets so compressed as to become inelastic, a 10k amelioration (that is also prevented from creeping up to 15k or 20k within a few years) can be quite significant. Plus certain districts are obviously impacted disproportionately compared to others by not just the reduction in housing available but the sheer foot traffic and other blight that comes along with a lopsided rise in tourist accommodations.

EasyMark 2y ago

Assuming your stats hold up then it would seem like politicians are being politicians and blaming someone else for a housing shortage rather than actually directly addressing the issue. It’s easy to distract regular folks by making them angry at Air BnB instead of just working on real solutions.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Everyone wants to legislate free housing for themselves.

NoLinkToMe 2y ago

I think your comment is still fair. 100k population growth isn't the metric I think to focus on as if it's the a measure of total 'new demand', to be compared to 15k new homes as 'new supply'. After all, population growth in cities that are in high-demand like Barcelona is very much also a function of supply. If you magically create 100k affordable homes, you'll find population growth to fill up those homes within a relatively short period (<10y). If you magically remove 100k homes, you'll see population drop. So population growth isn't a complete measure of demand. Rather it just says something about how much the housing stock reasonably can accommodate. If you build nothing, population growth will be minimal, but it doesn't mean all possible demand has been accommodated. It just means there's lots of latent demand that have no homes to move into. It's more sensible to look at the growth of the housing stock verus existing housing stock. I read in this thread: 15k properties built over 10 years (1.5k per year), a metro that has houses 5.7 million people, 2.5 people per home, means there are 2.3 million homes. 1.5k homes per year on 2.3m existing homes means they're adding 0.06% housing stock per year. That simply IS a drop in the bucket. It's peanuts. Most in-demand (capital/a-tier) cities aim to construct at least 1% a year. For example, Amsterdam grew by 15% in the last 10 years, despite very stringent building requirements, green zones that can't be built, height restrictions to protect the character of the inner city, swamp land foundations and various environmental, water & electricity capacity challenges NL is facing right now. So yes, if you're constructing at a fraction of the rate of other in-demand cities, then I would agree that eliminating tourist apartments is a band-aid solution, not a root-cause solution that works in the long term. As for the balance of tourism vs locals, it's a tricky one. I think one thing we shouldn't forget is that 1 tourist apartment creates a lot of meaningful experiences within a year. An average tourist say of about 5 days in a city means that across a 10 year period an apartment can accommodate either one family living there full-time, or 700 different families having a holiday experience in Barcelona. Put differently, these 10 thousand tourist homes that will come on the market, will house 10 thousand households more, and will prevent 700 thousand households from renting them on a 5 day trip to Barcelona, adding only 0.04% to the housing stock (one-time) and changing very little about the economics of housing in Barcelona for (new) locals. It's easy to hate on tourists, but being a tourist can be a wonderful experience, that is meaningful and valuable, and shouldn't just be dismissed as some annoyance to locals. Of course all should be in balance. To speak on a personal note: I live in a city that takes in 20 million tourists a year on a population of less than 1 million, I don't work in tourism and for me it's mostly an annoyance. I definitely think we shouldn't grow the number of tourists anymore in my city, I think the same for Barcelona is true. But I also think it's worthwhile to maintain a big chunk of current tourism, even if it's annoying to me as a local, because I have no monopoly on enjoying my city. We've restricted tourist apartments to renting 30 days a year (the number of days a local is on holiday himself, and rents out his apartment), and I think that's fine. No need to eliminate it altogether though.