Short Term Rentals do not help, but ... as someone who has been doing housing stuff for a few years now, they're one of several bogeymen that people want so badly to be 'the real problem'. But they aren't. It's your neighbors who show up to oppose housing, like this crowd at a hearing I attended to support some apartments:
https://bendyimby.com/2024/04/16/the-hearing-and-the-housing...That's 40 homes (aka 'units') that are not built, and it's not because of STR's, foreign buyers, Blackstone or whatever other bogeyman.
That happens all over the place, every single day.