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Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

euronews.com

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Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#11

Post by tcoff91 »

handmodel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention it - and I can't find it anywhere - but in any neighborhood what is the highest proportion of units that are short-term rentals. Five percent? Ten percent in the super touristy areas? I have no idea and even before the other flaws in the study I am skeptical than anything short of 20% would make an impact on any major attribute of an area. I see one stat in the paper that "40% of buildings…

My neighborhood has got to be at least 33% vacation rentals, with a few streets being above 50%.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#13

Post by jimmygrapes »

handmodel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention it - and I can't find it anywhere - but in any neighborhood what is the highest proportion of units that are short-term rentals. Five percent? Ten percent in the super touristy areas? I have no idea and even before the other flaws in the study I am skeptical than anything short of 20% would make an impact on any major attribute of an area. I see one stat in the paper that "40% of buildings…

Preface: this is just my opinion at this moment.

I feel like trying to attribute specific numbers to the article's phenomenon is sort of a waste.

It really only takes one individual who is significantly disruptive to change the perception of trust and safety in any given region. The only limit (where percentages and such start creeping in) is in the physical reach that individual has. Anybody who has lived in the same neighborhood as "that guy" knows this to be true.

When "that guy" becomes more, the physical area may not change, but the level of trust and safety might, and that itself can propagate to other areas through gossip, news coverage, etc.

I don't have much of a point, I just wanted to say that the upper limit of "number of people required to make a place feel unsafe" is exactly one.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#14

Post by colinmhayes »

agallant wrote: post #5
LatteLazy wrote: post #2

Researchers find correlation assume causation...

We use difference-in-difference models (Eq (1)) to test whether a rise in the prevalence of Airbnb in a census tract in one year predicts increases in crime and disorder in the following year. ... The models control for tract-level and year fixed effects. In order to make the parameter estimates that follow more interpretable, we note that the average census tract in the average year experienced 11.32 events of priva…

Is it fair to say "a rise in the prevalence of Airbnb in a census tract in one year predicts increases in crime and disorder in the following year."? Probably yea, that just implies a correlation. Is it fair to say "airbnb raises violent crime in cities"? I think you'd need an rct for that one.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#15

Post by agallant »

colinmhayes wrote: post #14
agallant wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use difference-in-difference models (Eq (1)) to test whether a rise in the prevalence of Airbnb in a census tract in one year predicts increases in crime and disorder in the following year. ... The models control for tract-level and year fixed effects. In order to make the parameter estimates that follow more interpretable, we note that the average census tract in the average year experienced 11.32 events of priva…

Is it fair to say "a rise in the prevalence of Airbnb in a census tract in one year predicts increases in crime and disorder in the following year."? Probably yea, that just implies a correlation. Is it fair to say "airbnb raises violent crime in cities"? I think you'd need an rct for that one.

The sentence you're concerned with is the headline of the article, but isn't found in the original paper. Here's how they close their abstract:

  This result supports the notion that the prevalence of Airbnb listings erodes the natural ability of a neighborhood to prevent crime, but does not support the interpretation that elevated numbers of tourists bring crime with them.
"Supports the notion" is a far more nuanced statement, I'd say.

And again - I'm just responding to the idea that saying "correlation is not causation" can allow one to dismiss any statistical study. The study may have flaws, may overstate its results, could be completely terrible in fact - but the people who did it know about correlation and causation, and refuting them requires going deeper than that. In general, it requires looking at their paper, not the news coverage of it.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#17

Post by redis_mlc »

handmodel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention it - and I can't find it anywhere - but in any neighborhood what is the highest proportion of units that are short-term rentals. Five percent? Ten percent in the super touristy areas? I have no idea and even before the other flaws in the study I am skeptical than anything short of 20% would make an impact on any major attribute of an area. I see one stat in the paper that "40% of buildings…

FYI: Bay Area motels try to size up guests to see if their room will be used for a high school/college party pad.

For the past 30 years.

So if professional lodging managers with on-site security are worried about each potential guest, I guarantee app rentals are out of control.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#18

Post by disabled »

agallant wrote: post #10
gowld wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The article cites wild speculation made by the study authors: "The large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization, and in turn its natural ability...to counteract and discourage crime," and the research reeks of p-hacking and non-reproducibility: Spain: >"It encourages the concentration of tourists who, due to their characteristics, are suit…

Again, not vouching for the study as a whole - and agreed that scientists can get a bit "creative" when trying to actually describe and motivate causal mechanisms (in their defense, a very hard problem). But I'm just talking about the statistics here, and specifically that saying "correlation is not causation" is a bit overused. Researchers know about it too, those four words don't magically dismiss all statistical s…

> But I'm just talking about the statistics here, and specifically that saying "correlation is not causation" is a bit overused.

I think that term has erupted into popularity with the widespread adoption of AI, which is intellectually bankrupt. With AI you can find correlation between things, and draw a very basic rudimentary conclusion, but never actually know why this happens (the causation), in this day and age.

For example, let's apply an unethical use of AI. Let's say an individual goes to the grocery store weekly and buys a dozen eggs and 1 container of dry shampoo (for washing your hair without water), every single week for the past 2 months. With AI and the hoarding of data, it can be found that this individual is going to die in the next 6 months to a 95% confidence interval.

The individual gets harassing ads during this, even though they are not going to die. The ads, of course, in this day and age, play into everyone’s hopes and fears anyways, which is abusive.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#19

Post by handmodel »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #13
handmodel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention it - and I can't find it anywhere - but in any neighborhood what is the highest proportion of units that are short-term rentals. Five percent? Ten percent in the super touristy areas? I have no idea and even before the other flaws in the study I am skeptical than anything short of 20% would make an impact on any major attribute of an area. I see one stat in the paper that "40% of buildings…

Preface: this is just my opinion at this moment. I feel like trying to attribute specific numbers to the article's phenomenon is sort of a waste. It really only takes one individual who is significantly disruptive to change the perception of trust and safety in any given region. The only limit (where percentages and such start creeping in) is in the physical reach that individual has. Anybody who has lived in the sam…

As you said if there is a "that guy" in a neighborhood you'd feel unsafe and Airbnb is displacing those people. It's a trade-off. Its not like this about adding units to a neighborhood but specifically that there is less community if that's the case there are lots of Airbnbs (they said in the article that noise complains and crimes leading to rowdy behavior did not change).

If someone was on the fence about whether this community effect is real - after a single study - wouldn't knowing if 5% of units are Airbnb's are rentals versus 40% be enough to change your conclusions? My prior is that a community cannot be eroded by 10% of unknown people since that is standard for any tight-knit neighborhood anyway.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#20

Post by in_cahoots »

agallant wrote: post #10
gowld wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The article cites wild speculation made by the study authors: "The large-scale conversion of housing units into short-term rentals undermines a neighborhood’s social organization, and in turn its natural ability...to counteract and discourage crime," and the research reeks of p-hacking and non-reproducibility: Spain: >"It encourages the concentration of tourists who, due to their characteristics, are suit…

Again, not vouching for the study as a whole - and agreed that scientists can get a bit "creative" when trying to actually describe and motivate causal mechanisms (in their defense, a very hard problem). But I'm just talking about the statistics here, and specifically that saying "correlation is not causation" is a bit overused. Researchers know about it too, those four words don't magically dismiss all statistical s…

It’s an overused phrase because it’s so often true. The analysis acknowledges the possibility of confounding variables but only makes a weak attempt to address it, using demographic info, income, and homeownership rates. This is the definition of a correlational approach. And to make matters worse they throw in some hypothesizing about Airbnb eroding the ‘local social dynamic’.

‘Causal linkage’ is great in theory. In reality it often shows directionality but not causality. This is a prime example.

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