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Comment by brightsize | Hacker News Reader

When I was visiting Berlin last winter, I stayed at Airbnb flats and it seemed like a lot of the owners were doing exactly this. In fact, to your point, the city was, IIRC, about to forbid vacation rentals in certain neighborhoods. Berlin is rapidly gentrifying, there's a R.E. bubble going on, poorer people are being pushed out of the city, and this kind of thing intensifies that trend. I've no idea if cities in the US would be willing to step in and intervene if this became common here.

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Berlin is rapidly gentrifying, there's a R.E. bubble going on, poorer people are being pushed out of the city

This is true in lots of fun cities, primarily because it's so hard to build new housing stock—which is a Bad Thing, as Matthew Yglesias describes in The Rent is Too Damn High. Britain is suffering from a variant of the "no building" problem too: http://www.buzzfeed.com/dlknowles/britains-dysfunctional-pro... : "Construction started on just 107,000 new homes in England last year. Excluding World War II, that’s the lowest figure since the 1920s."

The solution to "gentrification" and what not is "building new dwellings," which we know how to do very effectively (elevators and steel are century-old technologies). The problem is regulatory / political.

It's not quite that simple. Building up can ruin the character of the neighborhood, which is often a big part of the allure.

I do think we're chronically underbuilding in a lot of places (SF being an extreme example), but the existence of steel and elevators is not a panacea for the "gentrification problem".

> Building up can ruin the character of the neighborhood, which is often a big part of the allure.

Well then, less allure would lead to lower prices, right? What's not to like?

That's all well and good. But all the wealthy people who already live there will probably use their political clout to prevent new construction.

And this is inherently wrong, why? People (of whatever their net worth) vote, speak at meetings, and talk to their representatives to try and pursue outcomes that they prefer. One of those outcomes may be maintaining a particular character for a neighborhood. It's complicated. Greater good for the larger city or whatever and all that. But I don't see anything devious about residents having a say in what their community looks like.

> And this is inherently wrong, why?

Because the world does not exist for the benefit of the rich and privileged; not simply the "rolling in Maserati" rich but those in a position to enact those gentrifying policies--who are overwhelmingly upper-income and capable of exerting more time to get what they want, have more money to apply to their causes, and generally are better-educated and able to execute.

The "selfish vote" amongst the privileged is indeed a problem. A lack of social responsibility and a refusal to understand that those unlike you must too be able to live are moral failings. They are wrong, and situations that increase the effectiveness and value of the selfish vote amongst people with privilege are undesirable.

> Because the world does not exist for the benefit of the rich and privileged

No? Does it exist for the benefit of the poor then? -They sure keep voting for more wealth transfers and taxes on the rich, and they keep getting them too!

Note that I'm just an ordinary middle-class white person. I just wanted to point out that the world does not exist for any group's benefit. We're all just people, all just individuals here.

> Does it exist for the benefit of the poor then?

No. But we have ample historical evidence that huge wealth and privilege disparity does not lead to societal stability. The selfish vote of those rich and privileged seeks to increase this disparity. The selfish vote of the poor does not.

The Rich-Enough don't actually vote to change things, they buy politicians and make deals behind the scenes.

It's not quite that simple. Building up can ruin the character of the neighborhood, which is often a big part of the allure.

I don't think I've ever seen an example of this reflected in prices. Do you know of any, or of any studies of this phenomenon?

I don't know if this is a great example, but: http://www.leavenworth.org/

It's sort of a Bavarian themed down-town and city in Washington state. Its allure and attraction to tourists depends on its theme.

I say I don't know if it's a great example because I have no direct evidence about prices, but I assume the reasonable volume of tourists and business must raise prices compared to other cities.

In Mitte, there are some buildings where most of the apartments are Airbnb rentals or similar. There are few local residents left who are not so happy about living in a 24/7 party hostel.

If you don't end your contract, your rent is going to stay quite low in Berlin. If you're retired or unemployed and living decently with a rent around 100€ per month, it's not so easy to escape from the apartment. With a new contract, the rent might be ten times more expensive. Or the place is renovated and put into Airbnb.

People in general here in Berlin don't want more hotels. Especially for the residential neighbourhoods which makes all the prices go up even faster. Too bad some of the neighbourhoods are also very 'hip' places to stay...

I put my parents up in an AirBnB apt in Paris when they were visiting me. The renter had an agreement with a handful of friends that they would crash at their friend's apt when their apt was being AirBnB'd out. She said a lot of the students do it to earn extra cash. Same was true in most other cities we AirBnB'd in.

Berlin has been gentrifying ever since they tore down that wall. You can still buy apartments in East Berlin for under $100K.

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