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Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

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Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#301
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nimbyism at its best.

Usually nimbyism refers to residential property clashes: people who don't want more housing "in their backyard" because it blocks their view, don't want lower income housing because of worries about crime or property values, etc. It doesn't really refer to "I don't want to live next to an unregulated hotel"

Nimby means people who want to benefit from something, like a power plant or a garbage dump or the moral comfort of tolerating poor people, but want someone else to suffer the externalities. "Of course I support homeless camps, but Not In My Back Yard"

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber has a low cost because it doesn't use monopoly power to gouge consumers like cities do when issuing medallions. So Uber's secret sauce is the fact that it breaks the law, not VC money. The medallion laws are unjust and should be broken, other laws like insurance, driver training and vehicle safety are not. This is what makes the debate so complex and passionate, with people taking one side or the other depending…

Uber loses money, so at most you could argue that it is law breaking AND VC money. And without a lot of numbers on the cost of medallions, etc in each city it operates, you're actually just asserting your belief, not making an argument.

> Uber loses money, at most you could argue that it is law breaking AND VC money.

I don't follow the logic. Many companies have negative cash flow while they invest in growth. What is "it" in your sentence? If you're saying there are only two possible factors for the relatively low ride fares, I think you're forgetting the reduction of transaction costs.

Hailing a cab on the street is frustrating. Hailing a cab by phone call even more frustrating and uncertain. Decreasing the transaction cost increases demand, which encourages supply, which lowers cost, which ... Anyway, there's a new equilibrium price.

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#303
post #129
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wrap my mind around people that think that 'too many tourists' or 'too many jobs' are a problem. Those are 'problems' that most cities in the world would kill for: if we consider them problems it's because we are not nearly creative enough to take advantage of them. As a simple example: if we have too many tourists, give a progressive daily tax that's charged to every visitor that automatically includes museu…

> a progressive daily tax that's charged to every visitor Lots of places already have this as a "hotel tax" .. which AirBnb doesn't pay.

It’s collected in most states and in some countries that have elected the tax to cover short term rentals: (including France, Germany, Switzerland, India, Mexico, Brazil, Italy) https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/653/in-what-areas-is-occ...

Outside of that list, the host may have to collect it themselves if the location is not supported yet: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/654/what-is-occupancy-ta....

(Disclosure: I work at Airbnb)

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venice, mentioned elsewhere in this thread as a problem city because of AirBnB, levies this tax against people who visit and stay in AirBnB

This is interesting. How is it enforced and collected?

Anecdotally when I was staying in Venice two years ago I didn't pay any kind of tax for the Airbnb unless it was worked into the price.

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#305
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? What is? Uber/Lyft seem like a great solution to me.

Uber is a great concept, but the reality is that Uber has shown us time and time again why taxis cost what they do: regulation to protect users and our cities. Uber, like AirBnB and a lot of other startups, are 'disrupting' industries by entering them and taking them over by ignoring regulations, insurance, and even laws to keep costs low and make a profit. In this day and age, they can grow fast enough that by the t…

Regulation also limits the number of taxis out on the streets (for better or worse).

Uber has no incentive to limit the number of drivers they employ. Our small streets are jammed with Uber/Lyft cars endlessly driving back and forth.

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the two “good neighbor” laws you picked mainly impact drivers. Perhaps the answer to your question is that almost all New Yorkers (city) are living in multiple dwelling buildings but only a smallish minority are regular drivers.

They also impact pedestrians. I've seen pedestrians almost hit due to double parking in NYC. Sometimes they are also jaywalking, but sometimes there's a crosswalk or intersection and the double parking is hurting visibility.

That’s a good point. I wonder if that’s been considered as part of vision zero.

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>meant to help people who are annoyed So to summarize you: rights are not inalienable but dependent on if people get annoyed. Do you see how philosophically weak that position is? Should Muslims be deported because the US government finds them annoying and people 'never chose to live next door to them'? Rights must be grounded in something other than 'popular opinion'. I'd rather live in a world where I simply have t…

> So to summarize you: rights are not inalienable but dependent on if people get annoyed. You're not being reasonable, but rather reading your own straw men into what I wrote. Based on your misunderstandings, I can pretty confidently say that "rights" are a lot more complicated and multifaceted than you seem to comprehend. There are more kinds of rights relevant here than just property ownership rights and those crea…

You rested your argument on the fact that we should take away someone’s right because they got annoyed. So no, I am not being unreasonable.

I don’t need you to realize rights are inalienable but you do need to me to believe that submitting to oppression does bestow rights to me or else your framework falls apart.

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#308
post #260
post #50

That's a bit of a shame. I get where they are coming from, but the place in Ueno my girlfriend and I rented out was cute and we didn't hold any wild parties, even if I did get the evil eye from some old guy in a convenience store.

How did it go for the trash ? recycling rules ? balcony usage ? Did you check/pass the kanranban ? Genuinely, resident building are so different from hotels I wonder how smooth it is for the residents to have random oversea people passing by even only 180 days a year, even if they are polite, well educated and well intended.

Also stayed exclusively in Airbnbs when traveling in Japan.

The hosts usually explained the rules how to sort the trash, including the removal the cap on the water bottles, and showed where to put the trash (on this random trash pile next to the building). Not sure about the balcony usage, but I'd would probably use common sense and not be yelling there or using it in the middle of the night. Also I don't smoke but seems as smoking goes, the rules were pretty liberal in Japan.

I don't see these being issues, if the host explains the customs, obviously you cannot expect that everyone knows all your countries rules. On a side not its interesting how many different ways there is to sort trash.

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#309
post #281
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally in favour of this, but "build more tall buildings in a World Heritage Site to satisfy the temporary demand of tourists" isn't going to be popular. Japan of course is already full of high-density housing. (Edinburgh is building housing, but lots of it is suburban low-density)

Japanese cities are actually not especially high density. For example, Tokyo's density is lower than Queens.

Technically correct but misleading; the thing that most people mean when they say Tokyo is "the 23 wards" (compare: the five burroughs; the canonical definition of New York which even kids growing up in Chicago learn the names of by sheer osmosis).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo#/media/...

^^ They're the green part of this map. The non-green part of this map is, technically correct is the best kind of correct, also Tokyo (administered under Tokyo-to as opposed to any other prefecture), but it's not core Tokyo.

(Akiruno-shi, for example, looks like this: http://www.bbqjp.com/portfolio/dainimizube/ )

The density of the 23 wards is ~twice that of Queens, which much of it being 3x. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo

Re: Nearly 80% of Japan’s Airbnbs removed in response to new home-share law

#310
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese cities are actually not especially high density. For example, Tokyo's density is lower than Queens.

Technically correct but misleading; the thing that most people mean when they say Tokyo is "the 23 wards" (compare: the five burroughs; the canonical definition of New York which even kids growing up in Chicago learn the names of by sheer osmosis). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo#/media/... ^^ They're the green part of this map. The non-green part of this map is, technically correct is the best k…

Hm, I thought I was careful of getting the numbers for the 23 wards (I live there too ;) ), but looks like I made a mistake indeed.

With the correct numbers, Tokyo "23 wards" becomes 40 % higher than NY metropolis, and approximately the same as Brooklyn (~15000 / km2). I would still argue it is not as dense as many people think (e.g. people often don't think of Paris as super dense, even tough it is itself ~40 % higher density that Tokyo). Yes, the houses are small, but except for within the few central wards, there are not that many high rise buildings.

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