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Comment by xphilter | Hacker News Reader

It’s not just housing prices. It’s community and neighborhood. People want to live in a neighborhood with actual people, not a decentralized hotel. I say this as someone who has done short term rentals in Paris—it was nice for me, but I can see how annoying it must be for residents.

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Exactly. The apartment complex I'm in rents out some apartments on AirBnB, including the one directly above me. The direct impact is only that it gets vacuumed far more often than a normal tenant would (between each AirBnB usage, about twice a week), increasing the noise. The indirect impact is that I do not have an opportunity to say hello to neighbors, ask how they are doing, send excess baked goods, etc. If a long-term neighbor is being loud, you can rely on that relationship to ask for quiet. If a short-term neighbor is being loud, you have no relationship with them, so you need to instead escalate to the management, who may or may not enforce noise limits at all.

Most short term rentals in apartment complexes are actually against the rental contract of the building. Thus you probably have a very strong hand when you deal with a noisy host. I would still be nice to stay friends with a neighbor, but if vacuuming bothers you and you ask the host to limit vacuuming to certain hours of the day he will likely jump to do your bidding. My 2c.

With lots of newer buildings they have apartments specifically dedicated to AirBNBs. They're managed by the apartment complex.

Exactly.

I live in a small five apartment building. Two flats were remodelled at the beginning of 2020 for airbnb. That did not work out because of covid. The owner of one flat then decided to live there herself and she is a nice neighbor (the other flat is still empty).

I wonder if this argument holds less weight now that people in blocks of flats in some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago -- in Helsinki for instance it is a faux pas to speak to one's neighbours, and some even claim that politeness demands you check through the peephole that the hallway is empty before going out, so you don't bump into a neighbour and make him/her uncomfortable. Plus, there must be a greater turnover of tenants these days due to study and job mobility, so why bother trying to build relationships.

Interacting with neighbors is one part, but it's also things like noise, and the businesses in the area (catering to tourists vs locals).

Like when the Amsterdam city center, in addition to made in china pot leaf trinket stores, all of the sudden was overrun with Nutella Ice Bakery waffel stores, peddling some vague idea that tourists have about waffles and Nutella being local culture, making these businesses completely irrelevant to locals.

>"I wonder if this argument holds less weight now that people in blocks of flats in some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago -- in Helsinki for instance it is a faux pas to speak to one's neighbours, and some even claim that politeness demands you check through the peephole that the hallway is empty before going out, so you don't bump into a neighbour and make him/her uncomfortable."

What evidence is there that people in "some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago"? I can't speak for Helsinki but honestly the behavior you describe sounds borderline pathological. I've lived in many cities around the world and would not describe that as common.

Indeed. There's a neighborhood in New Orleans called the Bywater. Traditionally it has been a working class neighborhood. A large percentage of people who worked in the service industry lived and congregated there. They were largely displaced by AirBnBs and AirBnB guests who "wanted to live like a local." The endless parade of guests getting in and out of Ubers with their phone in one hand and a rolling suitcase in other does little to convey any sense of community and neighborhood.

People don't want to live in industrial areas, or fully commercial areas either.

That's what "zoning" is for.

Maybe the city should just designate a zone / neighborhood for short term rentals and call it a day.

Apparently the travelers don't want that because they can't role play being a local. Though in Paris the hotels are, apartments and business are all mixed together in the same areas

Here’s an idea: have a tourist zone full of Airbnb-type flats. Fill it with coffee shops, bars, and pay locals to be there as extras.

I understand, but in context, I feel this supports rather than negates my original post.

I understand the "decentralized hotel" problem. But, this seems to come up with fiery enthusiasm in the context of housing affordability constantly. Ultimately, affordability is a bigger problem then neighborhood character.

No one gets this fired up about sidewalks, business licensing, speed limits, parking and everything else that makes up neighborhood character.

The way to fix that is to bring back effective covenants. Covenants were neutered in the US under the guise of the civil rights movement; the government explicitly wanted to stop people from deciding what kind of neighborhood they wanted to live in, because most people want to live with their own ethnic group.

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