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Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

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Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#331

Post by atoav »

mapcars wrote: post #228
kranke155 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tourism is a shit industry. You could mostly annihilate it and replace it with productive things most of the time.

> The tourism industry has a significant impact on Spain’s economy, generating over 70 billion euros in gross value added (GVA) in 2019. This represents a substantial contribution to the country’s GDP and employment, with over 2.5 million people employed in the tourism sector Well maybe you will just tell Spanish government how to replace that?

Having lived in two tourism-heavy cities over my life, I don't think most cites are fundamentally opposed to tourism per se. But — and that is a big "But" it is a question of the amount and the kind of tourism. Too much of the wrong tourism in the wrong area of the city can be a negative thing for living quality, for life outside touristic seasons, for the general development of neighborhoods etc.

So it is within a cities interest to have some degree of control ofer the amount and kind of tourism. And controlling the number of accommodations is a pretty good lever.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#333

Post by Nasrudith »

zrn900 wrote: post #209
SeanAnderson wrote: post #25

Barcelona has a population of ~1.7 million. The metro area surrounding is ~5.7 million. The metro area grew by ~100k in the past four years. They are freeing up ~10,000 houses over the next four years with this legislation. Barcelona built ~15,000 new properties between 2011 and 2020. The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the…

> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. The population growth is largely due to rich foreigners moving into the city: "I was born and raised in Barcelona, no longer live there however. I didn't remember how bad it was until I went to visit my family last summer. Me and some friends w…

This furthers my thesis that anti-tourism is basically just a dogwhistle/socially acceptable channel for their xenophobia.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#334

Post by thechao »

pupperino wrote: post #328
38 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get rid of most zoning regulations "most" is doing a lot of work here. don't forget you probably don't want to live next to an airport, railroad, chemical plant

Well, living near and airport or railroad is priced in, and not really a problem. Chemical plants... A bit of a stretch, isn't it?

I lived a few miles away from the Texas City plant, growing up. A good, stiff, wind, and a penchant for rhinoviruses can solve a lot of chemical-plant-related issues.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#335

Post by Nasrudith »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #167
mattrighetti wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Airbnb landlords won't rent to locals at all because it's not convenient enough for them do so what will you do for the good of the majority of the people? Forcefully seize their apartment because people need it?

Those property rights exist because the locals consent to them. If the landlords' behavior undermines that consent then it only makes sense that the locals would revoke the property rights. How else, besides continued maintenance of that consent, would property rights get their legitimacy?

Under that logic your breathing is a matter of their continued consent and lynch mobs are an expression of a democratic society. Protection of minority rights is an important function in government.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#336

Post by Nasrudith »

popcalc wrote: post #105
mattlondon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is renting from the landlord precisely what the problem is? Middleman or not, it is an apartment that a normal local person can't use.

You can't stop the free market. Once it's out of the bag, given a long enough time-frame without volatility (technological innovation/political turbulence/labor/etc.) it always returns to feudalism. Sand aggregates into the form of a pyramid in the absence of winds. So do societies.

For the love of god, please learn what feudalism actually is. It isn't someone renting out land it is a government structured via a system of sworn allegiances.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#337

Post by diggan »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #261
diggan wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barcelona can basically not grow horizontally anymore, being blocked in from all sides and all the ground is already covered by something . So the alternative is to build vertically, but that also comes with trade-offs as the streets get less sun and city dwellers will be able to see less sky. People on the internet will do anything but read before spouting their obvious solutions on the internet.

> So the alternative is to buy vertically... And the superblocks in Barcelona are already quite high and suffocating.

The "superblocks" (superillas) in Barcelona has little to do with height. I think you're referring to just the Cerdà-designed blocks that has been around for a long time. The "superblocks" in Barcelona is about reducing the traffic running through all the blocks, but has little to do with the height of the buildings in the blocks.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#338

Post by chipdart »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #155
sangnoir wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. Since this is HN, I was expecting a little more rigor in proving the math not mathing: how many people can be housed in 15 000[1] + 10 000 houses? How small is the drop and how big is the bucket? From sibling comment, average density is 2.51 people per home * 25k houses which works out to 62 750 housed people out of the 100 000 population growth. If my math is correct…

The 15k houses were built over 10 years, but the 100k growth is over 4 years. So 4/10ths of 15k ~= 9k/47k housed. I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket. The action frees up more housing than Barcelona built over the same time period. This is good. However, it's still not a long-term solution. This is a one-time action that when taken, and combined with the housing being built…

> I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket.

I don't think it's dramatic. The whole anti-tourist arguments are based on, to put it charitably, politically-motivated specious reasoning. In this particular example, this whole argument is based on these assumptions:

* making available each and every single one of those 15k houses for long-term rentals or sales instead of making them available for short-term rentals would prevent or significantly attenuate the existing housing crisis,

* Demand for short-term rentals has no positive impact on the housing market by creating demand for real estate investments and urban renewal programmes,

* Regulating away short-term rentals would not shift demand to classic HORECA offerings, which results in replacing whole residential buildings or even city blocks right in the city center. See for example Hotel Arts Barcelona or W Barcelona.

The whole anti-tourist sentiment is based on nonsense, like assuming that just because a luxury suite is on AirBnB it would otherwise be made available as affordable housing for working-class family.

And should I point out the "tourists go home, refugees welcomed" self-defeating propaganda piece?

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#339

Post by chipdart »

kranke155 wrote: post #180
jll29 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only hope this does not replace one problem with another: Because Spain's high unemployment, in particular youth unemployment and the construction sector, actions that reduce tourism lead to fewer jobs and less income flowing into the city. I'm not against the measure (last time in Barcelona I was in a hotel and my friends rented an AirBnB apartment instead; they had fun and I had to move hotel rooms because the gu…

Tourism is a shit industry. You could mostly annihilate it and replace it with productive things most of the time.

> Tourism is a shit industry. You could mostly annihilate it and replace it with productive things most of the time.

That's a bold statement, as if the whole world invests in tourism because they don't know better.

Spain's tourism sector represents a double-digit chunk of their GDP and is one of the rare sectors which has a direct effect in reducing unemployment, specially in the low-skilled, NEET cohort which is extremely problematic in countries such as Spain. Claiming that a country like Spain could simply annihilate it and replace it with something else is an extraordinary thing to say, specially as it lacks any support.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#340

Post by diggan »

chipdart wrote: post #338
SeanAnderson wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 15k houses were built over 10 years, but the 100k growth is over 4 years. So 4/10ths of 15k ~= 9k/47k housed. I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket. The action frees up more housing than Barcelona built over the same time period. This is good. However, it's still not a long-term solution. This is a one-time action that when taken, and combined with the housing being built…

> I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket. I don't think it's dramatic. The whole anti-tourist arguments are based on, to put it charitably, politically-motivated specious reasoning. In this particular example, this whole argument is based on these assumptions: * making available each and every single one of those 15k houses for long-term rentals or sales instead of making them…

> * making available each and every single one of those 15k houses for long-term rentals or sales instead of making them available for short-term rentals would prevent or significantly attenuate the existing housing crisis,

We can maybe both agree that doing something is better than doing nothing? Hopefully this is just one of the steps in a larger plan. Not a single thing will solve the current issues, but a combination of steps just might. At least someone is trying, which is a step in the right direction.

> Regulating away short-term rentals would not shift demand to classic HORECA offerings, which results in replacing whole residential buildings or even city blocks right in the city center. See for example Hotel Arts Barcelona or W Barcelona.

How is Hotel Arts or Hotel W examples of replacing whole residential buildings or city blocks? Both of them were built on previous undeveloped land (or sea in the case of Hotel W) and were new constructions when built, not reformations of existing buildings.

> The whole anti-tourist sentiment is based on nonsense

People's feelings are always "nonsense" if seen from a scientific/engineering perspective. People are hurt in numerous ways, and try to put the blame somewhere. They're being priced out of their homes, they see AirBnbs all over the place and you cannot walk outside without hearing loud tourists screaming in English and being awful, hard to blame people from drawing the lines between these things.

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