I honestly don't understand why European cities don't go nuclear against AirBnB. There's so much money to be made in fines and instant political approval from virtually every tenant.
A large part of the growth in tourism over the last 15 years can be attributed to cheap flights and cheap housing, via Airbnb and the likes (I.e hotels have not added the number of rooms needed to support this tourism boom).
Given the tepid economic growth in the Euro-zone over that period, I doubt they want to kill the golden goose.
[1] https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/tnt.tot.contrib.g...
And if you're worried about losing housing to rentals, now you've got some disused hotels you can turn into apartments or condos.
It's regulated because of suffrage arbitrage -- most of the local population doesn't care what the government does to tourists and the tourists can't vote in local elections. But that's just taxation without representation. It tends to be inefficient, because it suppresses the natural amount of tourism by over-taxing it to the detriment of the local economy. It also hurts everyone when everyone does it because then you're the victim of it on the day when you're the tourist and it's you who has no vote in unreasonable lodging restrictions or taxes.
And cities don't need to regulate the amount of housing in order to build infrastructure for it, all they have to do is observe it. If you build more buildings they need more sewers, but you shouldn't need their permission to build more buildings, they should just build more sewers with the property tax you'll be paying on the new buildings.
> People who save bucks on usually one one thing are usually not just frugal in that dimension.
That sounds dangerously close to an argument that poor people are undesirable and should be excluded.
And it isn't even accurate -- poor people have to eat too, and better that you get their business than somebody else. Plus, rich people will take a good deal on a room (see also: how they got rich), doesn't mean they don't have money to spend when they get there.
If uncontrolled, tourism takes over those places, eventually, there is little left for tourists to come to, what made the place interesting to begin with.
Unregulated conversion from housing capacity to other uses destroys the social core of neighborhoods, if there are no hard enforced laws against it.
Tourism for a few bucks cheaper in not human right, right to housing is, disproportionally more relevant to the economically most vulnerable people of each neighborhood.
My family travelled France on a budget in the early 90s just coming out of GDR. Doing Housesitting, Camping or Hotels in the outskirts, it was perfectly fine travelling into Paris for 45 Minutes to do sightseeings and Museums.
Doing this on a daily basis, because you were pushed out of your old neighborhood, because of indirectly rising rents or direct airbnb-repurposing, where your job and friends are still, is a whole nother story.
Then why would you expect it to have any major effect on housing availability there?
> Tourism for itself only works for purpose built resorts and specialized, not so urban destinations
Disagree. Look at New York City. It's full of tourists who come there for the city itself. And it has hardly destroyed the city.
> Unregulated conversion from housing capacity to other uses destroys the social core of neighborhoods, if there are no hard enforced laws against it.
This is only true if building new housing is prohibited, because otherwise conversion isn't necessary. If tourists want to come, converting existing housing only makes sense if it's unoccupied, otherwise it's more profitable to carry on collecting rents from existing housing and build new housing for tourists so you can get their money too. (There may be cases where it makes more sense to build new housing for long-term residents while converting existing stock for tourists depending on the nature of the existing stock, but that still isn't a reduction of housing stock for existing residents.)
What deprives people of housing and makes it cost more is refusing to build more in respond to higher demand.
Quite a bold claim, care to back that up?
Do you think an undocumented immigrant would get a better deal in SF?
What kind of comparison is that
And for what so poor renters who might not go out and vote for said issues when push comes to shove.