[HN Gopher] Airbnb and Neighborhood Crime
___________________________________________________________________
Airbnb and Neighborhood Crime
Author : say_it_as_it_is
Score : 62 points
Date : 2021-07-16 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.plos.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.plos.org)
| kube-system wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| villasv wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > > 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
| KallDrexx wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Maybe they are trying to evoke Mr. Subliminal
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aImzZfXGJ4M
| WorldMaker wrote:
| 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?
| istorical wrote:
| 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]
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| 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.
| cheschire wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| "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".
| ipnon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Grouping young professionals and tourists together under short
| term residents is a little bit ridiculous. This type of
| thinking seems to dominate housing discussions, that young
| people (or any incoming immigrants to a city/neighborhood) are
| a nuisance that must be put up with, and the good, ideal state
| of the neighborhood would be for nothing to ever change and
| everyone to stay where they are.
|
| You need more housing supply in Bed Stuy with or without
| Airbnb. It's reasonable to try to limit Airbnb so it doesn't
| get too out of hand, but it's definitely not the major driver
| of demand today. And you won't avoid gentrification by
| pretending that the demand is somehow not legitimate and can be
| easily controlled so that you never need to build anything new.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| We knocked down a 1930s depression house to put up a half
| million dollar home. My property tax is 5x my neighbors.
|
| Who's complaining? My neighbors who have fantastic schools
| and pay trivial taxes?
| skystarman wrote:
| I'm assuming you're in California.
|
| Their property tax laws are absolutely insane but good luck
| ever changing it.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Who's complaining?
|
| We know more about gentrification than starting the
| discussion from scratch. What is your experience with the
| downsides of gentrification?
| nohuck13 wrote:
| Honest question. What would a well-meaning, well-informed
| anti-gentrification activist find here to argue with?
|
| I assume these people exist; anecdotally they seem to include
| a lot of younger renters who stand to benefit the most from
| increased supply.
|
| So, honestly asking:
|
| - are they just disagreeing on the basic economics that
| supply drives down prices?
|
| - are they making a cultural argument against their immediate
| material interests?
|
| - are they arguing that gentrification is _caused_ by the
| building of "high-end" units, leading to private profits at
| the expense of the neighborhood?
|
| The last seems the most plausible. But if that were
| sufficient, I feel like we would see local chambers of
| commerce from Cleveland to Budapest banding together to
| subsidize a few such units and bring in the rich? It's not
| like there isn't a big political block that would stand to
| gain from igniting some gentrification on poor areas, if that
| were the main cause of gentrification...
|
| Honestly curious.
| antihero wrote:
| I think one problem at least is that if an area gets filled
| with young professionals with cash to burn, the businesses in
| the area either start realising they can start charging
| premium rates for things or they get bought by people who do.
| In addition to this, as the area becomes more desirable and
| affluent, landlords realise that they can increase the rents.
| This means that over time, the area becomes unaffordable for
| those who have lived there for decades, unless there's
| something like rent control introduced.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| > unless there's something like rent control introduced.
|
| s/rent control/more housing/ and then yes.
|
| Or perhaps do both, even better use housing vouchers
| instead. But you'll never rent control your way to a
| functional, affordable city. It can be a better bandaid
| than doing nothing at all but it's too untargeted and has
| too many downsides. And it very much falls into that same
| trap of thinking that young people aren't real residents
| who also need housing.
| inlikealamb wrote:
| Young people ARE a nuisance that must be put up with when en
| masse. I live in an area that went through the full extent of
| gentrification, from being colloquially referred to as a
| "slum" to being a place where single-family homes go for
| $1M+.
|
| The first wave of gentrification were college students
| because they are the group that would pay $1,000/mo per
| bedroom in a 4-bedroom house (which is a common way for
| developers to flip a property into a rental). They did not
| give two shits about the neighborhood, and would constantly
| litter, trespass, and be noisy at all hours of the night...
| and as the density of students living in the area increased,
| it got worse (careless landlords renting to them is also part
| of the problem). Apartments change hands every year, so
| you're not even consistently dealing with the same nuisance
| neighbors.
|
| I agree that neighborhoods need to change, but they need to
| change in a way that _isn 't_ unbridled gentrification. We
| need diverse multi-generational communities of families,
| young people, and old people because we keep each other in
| check (same goes for race and class). In my experience
| gentrification creates waves of homogenization.
| [deleted]
| skystarman wrote:
| The effect of Airbnb on the price of housing is pretty small,
| maybe a few percentage increase.
|
| Not saying that isn't worth doing something about but there it
| certainly wouldn't be at the top of my list. End onerous and
| restrictive zoning and increase housing supply should be the
| first move.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/garybarker/2020/02/21/the-airbn...
| ipnon wrote:
| A few percentage increase in a city of 8 million results in
| thousands of uprooted lives at the margin. I used Bed Stuy as
| an example because it seems to me a marginalized community.
| It is surrounded by poorer and richer neighborhoods that do
| not have the same housing problem I have described. In some
| sense Bed Stuy is the "frontline" where the processes I
| describe converge.
|
| Much like in war, the people on the "frontline" experience
| direct disturbance to their way of life, while those who live
| far away from the "frontline" have their lives go on as
| normal even if they are aware of the problems nearby.
| dorchadas wrote:
| The pandemic literally caused housing supply in Dublin
| Ireland to _double_ due to people fleeing the short-term
| rental market when tourism dried up. We 're talking from
| ~1600 listings to 3000+. Even if it doesn't affect cost,
| which is ludicrous given those numbers, it's certainly
| affecting the supply at a huge rate.
| skystarman wrote:
| You're attributing the surge in rental supply in a major
| city during the pandemic entirely to Airbnb?
|
| This is really lazy, unserious analysis.
|
| Housing supply in cities across the entire western world
| shrank because people were working remotely and fleeing
| urban centers which were shut down and huge centers of
| spread.
|
| So no. Not just Airbnb.
| dorchadas wrote:
| No, it was a good chunk of AirBnB:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/world/europe/airbnb-
| dubli...
| cycomanic wrote:
| The article you cite is not supporting your view. In fact it
| lists many cases where Airbnb (or short term leases in
| general) have a significant effect on both sales and rental
| property supply and is pushing up prices as a result.
| skystarman wrote:
| I never said there was no effect, in fact I said the
| opposite.
|
| The effect is relatively small (a few percentage points)
| compared to other factors, which bears out through
| empirical studies which are cited.
| youeseh wrote:
| I think it's fair to say that, the more pressure there is to
| meet short-term obligations, the higher the crime rate.
|
| Let's say there was no short-term renting allowed in Bed Stuy.
| Then, would there be enough supply of affordable housing to
| meet demand?
|
| What sort of obstacles do projects that introduce new housing
| supply face in Bed Stuy?
| ipnon wrote:
| New housing developments almost always will raze a decades
| old building with 3 or 4 apartments per floor for a shiny new
| building with 1 or 2 "luxury" apartments per floor. This is
| partly due to zoning (affordable housing is effectively
| illegal at a municipal level) and partly due to the housing
| market (the working class cannot afford to purchase new
| housing, they must rent the old).
| youeseh wrote:
| Do people in Bed Stuy (or the rest of the city) organize
| against new construction that reduces supply?
| skystarman wrote:
| The answer to your question is that people in Bed Stuy
| and NYC in general organize against ALL new construction.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I think it's fair to say that, the more pressure there is
| to meet short-term obligations, the higher the crime rate.
|
| I don't understand what that means. Pressure on whom?
| Property owners paying down debt? Residents paying for an
| Airbnb or rent?
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This analysis glosses over the underlying problem that drives
| the dynamic: the existence of NIMBY regulation and restrictions
| that artificially constricts the supply of housing.
|
| Without supply constraints, the existence of wealthy high-end
| housing demand _subsidizes_ not competes with working class
| demand. That's because the primary characteristic of high-end
| housing is newness. Today's luxury housing becomes tomorrow's
| middle class housing.
|
| This isn't just theoretical speculation. We know this is
| exactly how markets without supply constraints work because of
| the used car market. Rich car drivers who insist on new, luxury
| vehicles dramatically lower the cost of car ownership for
| everyone else by creating a robust used car market. There's no
| such thing as "auto gentrification" because carmakers can
| simply create new and better supply to satisfy high-end demand.
|
| Product quality improves continuously and the poor have access
| to 10 year old cars that are virtually identical to new luxury
| cars at a small fraction of the price. The used car market is
| arguably the greatest source of tangible wealth redistribution
| in the American economy.
| nohuck13 wrote:
| > That's because the primary characteristic of high-end
| housing is newness.
|
| The primary characteristic of high-end housing is the
| characteristic of being located in an already desirable
| neighborhood.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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)._
|
| My friends just bought in Bed Stuy. If one of them hadn't
| worked for the city's planning department for a few years,
| there is zero way they would have gotten their paperwork
| approved in the timeline and cost envelope they needed. They
| would _love_ to add a story to the building and rent it out,
| but that 's impossible under their community board.
|
| One of the most insidious unions in recent history is large
| landlords and anti-gentrification activists. Activists increase
| regulations and the cost of building and new entry. Landlords
| get asset appreciation while paying for "affordable housing.
| The latter creates multi-generational, heritable voting bloc to
| keep the whole mechanism in motion.
| mlinksva wrote:
| > the most unstable housing in New York City: the public
| housing
|
| How is public housing unstable? Are public housing residents
| frequently forced to move? AFAIK that's the definition of
| unstable housing.
| ipnon wrote:
| It is unstable in that 1) it is a housing option of last
| resort and 2) no one wants to stay longer than they need to.
| It is not a place where people "put down their roots,"
| partially by design, partially by circumstances.
| bitcurious wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/nyregion/as-new-york-
| rent...
|
| In 2015 the average length of stay was 22 years.
|
| In general the idea that folks would wait years on a
| waitlist with the intent of leaving ASAP doesn't pass the
| smell test.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > crime proliferates around the public housing in New York,
| including in Bed Stuy
|
| Could you provide support for that? I know many people suspect
| it and it's a well-known stereotype, but I don't know that it's
| true.
| andromeduck wrote:
| We could also just build more housing...
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I live in Minneapolis. The amount of high end condos and
| lofts going up around the city is staggering. Same thing in
| the outer ring suburbs. They're going up faster than they can
| fill them.
|
| My buddy was a professional hockey player. He played most of
| his career in Europe and just recently moved back. Moved into
| a nice condo in the down town area. Four months after moving
| in, he's seeing ads for the many, many open condos in his
| building, which have been discounted some $20-$30K below what
| he paid.
|
| We're now creating a deluge of high end housing that is now
| sitting empty and the owners/developers are having to compete
| side by side with each other for tenets now and its become
| completely cut throat. Add in businesses and people are
| fleeing the city and those owners are already starting to see
| the coming nightmare.
|
| So yes, I agree we need to build more house, but FFS we need
| to build according to the needs of the community, not the
| developer who's in a "get rich" scheme to gentrify huge
| swaths of the city.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Pretty much nothing in your screed is factual. The
| Minneapolis "building boom" reflects the general trend in
| most of the nation: expansion of the housing stock since
| about 2005 has been negligible, much less than 1 per
| hundred residents per year. This is about half the rate of
| real expanding cities like Houston.
|
| I don't know what better signal you expect than the fact
| that median sale price of homes in Minneapolis proper has
| gone up 45% in only 5 years and the time to sell is now 11
| days instead of 21 days in 2016, according to Redfin.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Fu56
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Lenders and developers invest based on an expectation of
| demand for high-end housing. What explains these outcomes?
| ericmcer wrote:
| 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.
| baby wrote:
| 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.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Well there have been several studies which concluded that the
| economic costs out weight the benifits. This has also nothing
| to do with density US vs Europe. In fact I suspect that many
| European cities are hit much worse than most US cities,
| because they are much more popular tourist destinations (the
| city with the most Airbnb lisings is London).
|
| Centres of some popular destinations (e.g. Nice) are now
| almost completely short term rental. The knock-on effect is
| that, even for the few long term residents the city is
| becoming less liveable because supermarkets are moving out
| and tourist shops are moving in.
|
| Essentially, short term rentals are turning many old city
| centres into something akin to Disneyland, an attraction park
| with nobody actually living there, because they can't afford
| to.
| dorchadas wrote:
| This exact thing actually happened in the States already.
| Gatlinburg, Tennessee is a prime example of it. 50 years
| ago the workers in the area lived there, now they've all
| been driven out by short term rentals and everything is
| pretty much tourist hell.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > 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.
| DeBraid wrote:
| 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/ are
| remarkable. Clearly these aren't typical host/guest
| experiences, but they seem more societally acceptable at hotels
| vs houses.
| baby wrote:
| 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.
| dorchadas wrote:
| Why do I hate AirBnB? Because I've been at the other end, where
| I wasn't able to find long term accommodation in a city because
| so much of it had been ported to short term rentals to give the
| tourists. The sooner AirBnB is gone and these short term
| rentals get back on the long term market, the better.
|
| And, the numbers from the pandemic in Dublin show it's quite a
| decent amount: the supply literally _doubled_ once all those
| short-term rentals went to long-term because lack of tourism.
| And that 's likely just the more over-leveraged owners, so
| there's still a lot that's being used as AirBnB than for the
| locals.
|
| Tourists shouldn't feel entitled to live like locals; they're
| _not_ locals.
| zamfi wrote:
| This isn't an Airbnb problem. This is a regulatory problem.
| Tons of people want to visit a city, airbnb makes it possible
| for short-term rentals to find short-term tenants.
|
| Getting rid of airbnb doesn't solve your problem because some
| new service for finding short-term tenants will take its
| place.
|
| Restricting short-term rentals by regulation does solve your
| problem.
| dorchadas wrote:
| AirBnB is the reason the short term rental problem exists.
| It _exacerbates_ it. Short term rentals were _nowhere_ near
| as popular as they are before AirBnB. If AirBnB doesn 't
| exist, they won't be anywhere near as popular as they
| currently are.
|
| And the issue is these aren't short term rentals. They're
| long term rentals that are being used for short term. _That
| 's_ the whole issue. These were never short term until
| AirBnB made it super easy to make them so. Without AirBnB,
| or some other similar service, this isn't as big of an
| issue.
|
| Also, in several cities AirBnB allows owners to operate
| short term rentals _illegally_ because they don 't enforce
| anything or aid in much enforcement at all.
| asdff wrote:
| Why would a renter do any unpaid upkeep for a property they
| don't own? That's the job of the land owner if they want to
| increase the value of their asset. The renter doesn't see any
| of that increase in appraisal for a well maintained front yard.
|
| For some neighborhoods, Airbnb do make up a much larger share
| of the finite housing stock. You are adding hotel capacity
| where there hasn't been any zoned, so you have to make that
| capacity out of the finite housing stock available, limiting
| housing available to people who are longer term members of the
| local economy. That's the fundamental issue with it.
| musingsole wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > 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-...
| musingsole wrote:
| I don't see a need for democratic representation in providing
| funds or services in pursuit of home ownership...Why do I
| need an elected official involved? I'd much rather Airbnb or
| others do the helpful work on the home-ownership side by
| choice rather than some legal mandate.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I am a voluntary collectivist so when I say democratic
| representation I mean people have a say in how the program
| is arranged. I'm not a big fan of representative democracy
| as it is too easy to co-opt. This is why I mentioned credit
| unions, as they are collectively owned and subject to
| member votes. They are not based on legal mandates with the
| threat of the state behind them but some semblance of
| mutual agreement between the members. (In practice actual
| credit unions vary in their real world democratic practices
| but I'm talking about the more democratic kind.)
|
| The problem with Airbnb running home loans is that the
| people running those programs have different interests than
| the community at large. They may focus on profit
| opportunity at the expense of equitable access or community
| stability. In practice this would for example lead them to
| pursue those with more wealth to give up rather than
| focusing on everyone including those in dire need of secure
| housing. And if the people have a problem with this there's
| not much they can do except try to appeal to Airbnb's
| customer base for a boycott.
|
| My point is that you can have democracy without the state
| and that is what I am advocating. You might be fine with
| Airbnb running a home loan scheme but to me that sounds
| like bad news.
|
| And more to the point it's not what I want to support. I
| believe strongly in the value of collective well being and
| I want to support systems that support that. I don't think
| hierarchical top down companies can bring us the collective
| well being I imagine.
|
| That said if you do want to use the state to improve the
| situation, Singapore and Vienna are great examples for how
| to do it. Or we could learn from those examples and
| replicate them with voluntary credit unions. Either way
| it's good stuff. I'd look up the many reports of bad
| outcomes when major investment firms buy properties to see
| what a home loan program ran by Airbnb would be like.
| duxup wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| paulsutter wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Or, perhaps, cause and effect are turned upside down here, and
| AirBnB rentals take place in neighborhoods with less social
| organization?
| dahfizz wrote:
| The study shows that _current_ AirBnB rental units correlate
| with increased violence _years later_.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| 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.
| baby wrote:
| It's funny but I feel the same way about SF in general. People
| are here for a bit, and so nobody seems to care about the state
| of the city.
|
| In European cities it's so dense that you really don't care if
| people are here short-term or long-term, you don't know the
| people around you anyway.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I think a larger component of it is that when you're living in
| a neighborhood with a large transient population it's a lot
| easier to justify the kind of bad behavior they wouldn't do to
| people they'd have to deal with again.
|
| This is basically how a tourism economy works (granted the many
| people getting fleeced are doing it willingly) to normalize
| dishonest business dealing.
|
| In the case of AirBNB and short term rentals you get an
| increase in crime.
| asdff wrote:
| I imagine you get an increase in trash, too. For many people,
| renting an airbnb solely to party extremely hard with your
| friends is a regular vacation for them. You end up getting
| drunken people stumbling back from the bars pissing and
| puking everywhere and throwing bottles because they don't
| live there. Leaving empty cases of Naturdays to clog the
| storm drains. Getting into fights with other groups of
| tourist out posturing. Booking rental exotic cars for
| instagram pictures and getting pulled over for driving drunk.
| Whats the saying go, you don't shit where you sleep? These
| people come to my city and proverbially shit everywhere,
| sometimes literally.
| NationalPark wrote:
| This historical example comes to mind
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town.
| watwut wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Right, I'm actually 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
|
| I think those are a relic of the early 90's fears about
| crime and gang activity; not so common today.
| dontbeabill wrote:
| 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
| foolinaround wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > led to more violence in neighborhoods in *later years*
| lmeyerov wrote:
| 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
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