Written by Iman Sadeghi and Sourav Ray • TVO
TL;DR
Prices? AirBnB absolutely raises then (rental and purchase)
Gentrification? AirBnB probably increases it in all areas, it may cause it in area that wasn’t at risk before.
Community norms? AirBnB damages or changes them.
The “sharing economy” is a disease. In theory it’s a great idea. In practice it’s simply increased the velocity on the race to the bottom.
The problem is too many people are so up their own asses they refuse to see how these services like Uber and AirBnb are making us all chase the dollar at the expense of the systems we build up over time for good fucking reason (consumer rights, equal access to services, etc).
Race to the bottom.
That bottom they’re racing to is defined by supply and demand. All these problems – the REITs, the AirBNBs, the foreign investors, the gouging landlords, the sleazy dishonest realtors, etc. are all exploiting the same underlying issue: housing is in short supply, and so whoever controls it can name their price. The way to defeat all these monsters is to get more built ASAP.
I would say that they’re creating the short supply, and the real issue is that we’re able to charge money for something people need to live. That almost always causes exploitation.
Normally when a price for a good/service is too high, we can stop buying until prices go down. With necessities though, if we stop buying, we die. That means landlords and home sellers don’t have to adjust prices much.
I feel the solution isn’t to make a shit tonne more homes. It’s instead to stop charging money for homes. Unfortunately this isn’t going to happen willingly.
Gentrification is a result of the real estate world being left unchecked. 2008 housing bubble is a prime example, as is what happened to East New York in the 1960s. It’s a racket.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/99-invisible/id394775318?i=1000519252824 99 % Invisible does a great story on it.
