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

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251–260 of 337 posts

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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost impossible to enforce. Depts. of Buildings are notoriously slow if the issue is not a clear and present safety hazard. By the time they get out there, the visitor will be long gone. They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end?

> They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end? The property is listed on AirBnB.com, where you get the address and the name of the person operating the AirBnB. They don't need an elaborate sting operation. They just take the link, test book it through the website, confirm the address and name of the oper…

I still can't tell which is happening:

1. You're trolling us with masterfully-ported prohibition-era enforcement mechanisms 2. You consider yourself a prohibitionist (of alcohol, drugs, or airbnb) and are advocating for prohibition-style responses to AirBnB. 3. You don't consider yourself a prohibitionist, and don't see how your opposition to AirBnB (and recommended enforcement mechanisms) is very similar to prohibitionists opposition to alcohol sales.

Which one sounds closest? Would you propose a 4th option?

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

#252
post #105

I'm really hoping that at some point a "conscientious" airbnb competitor would appear. Maybe something implementing a few basic (naive?) rules: 1. A property cannot be listed for more than 120 days a year.' 2. One cannot list more than 2 properties. So limiting to people that aren't actually making a business out of bnb's.

This won't happen because the natural evolution of every such company is to facilitate professionals and businesses, since that is where the money is. Uber & Lyft started off by saying they aren't meant for professional drivers, just folks looking to "rideshare" in their free time. Etsy was for creative people sitting at home making some crafts as a hobby. Airbnb was for people who wanted to make some extra money by…

Best example to me was eBay going from people selling used things to being almost entirely made up of storefronts. In Australia, Gumtree became popular as people actually selling used things, and then eBay bought them (I think they've sold it since).

Another example is Facebook. All about people and communities, and now a huge portion of it is business page management and advertising.

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

#253
post #165
post #40

As this topic becomes more and more mainstream, I look forward to the numerous Twitter posts sure to come from Airbnb employees about the taxing social implications that come with working at Airbnb, how it weighs on their conscious, and and their ultimate decision to follow what’s right and leave. But only after their RSU’s have vested, of course. More seriously, I’ve been very disappointed with Airbnb recently. I sp…

> how it weighs on their conscious conscience.

Couscous

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

#254
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally the fines would pay for the program, but how expensive is it really to have an anonymous phone tip line, and reuse existing infrastructure to fine or ticket a property owner?

> how expensive is it really The answer, as with all govtech, is “a lot more than it should be.” Governments, especially local governments, have no internal technology competence, and have to rely on vendors and contractors for absolutely everything.

I haven't seen any evidence that governments, local or otherwise, spend "a lot more than it should [cost]." They are (correctly) unable to subsidize the cost of development by selling data, which in some cases means they cannot use certain preexisting libraries. But many groups have to rely on vendors and contractors for their technical needs. Their costs should be compared to other groups outsourcing their needs.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But AirBnB is clearly used to create illegal hotels and that's the problem. The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal. The incentives aren't difficult: Create an anonymous tip line to report illegal AirBnB operations that violate zoning regulations. Have submitters provide the street address and URL of the AirBnB to make it easy. The person operating the AirBnB (or owner of the house…

Why single out AirBnB? Why not go after Uber, Lyft and others running illegal taxis? For all the talk of privilege lately, it takes a whole other level to blatantly break the law en masse under the guise of "disruption".

I think AirBnB, Uber and Lyft should all be targeted. Uber and Lyft's externalities increase traffic. AirBnB's drive up everyone's rent. Clearly AirBnB's is worse.

The question isn't "legal or not". It's how badly does the illegal act impact society. Same reason we prioritize arresting drunk drivers over red light runners.

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

#256
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But AirBnB is clearly used to create illegal hotels and that's the problem. The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal. The incentives aren't difficult: Create an anonymous tip line to report illegal AirBnB operations that violate zoning regulations. Have submitters provide the street address and URL of the AirBnB to make it easy. The person operating the AirBnB (or owner of the house…

> The person submitting the tip about an illegal AirBnB receives 25% of the fine. I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

But it’s not ratting on your neighbors. They’re not your neighbors anymore when they moved away from your neighborhood and rented their place out to people from outside your neighborhood who are not going to stay long enough to be your neighbors either. You no longer have neighbors in that home.

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

#257
post #33

A common quote on HN (and one that I firmly believe in) is: > It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. This so applies to AirBnB. It's not salary per se but those that benefit by renting out units or those for whom this has saved them money I've found typically get so defensive about AirBnB to the point of calling detractors NIMBYists and the like. I'…

> 4. Brings temporary residents into neighbourhoods that have no tie to that neighbourhood. Where I live we call this "tourism"

Who wants tourists in their building? And, seriously, unless you are in the hospitality industry then why would you want them around at all? And if you are, you probably ant tourists that stay in hotels and eat in restaurants, not in a little apartment.

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

#258
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But AirBnB is clearly used to create illegal hotels and that's the problem. The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal. The incentives aren't difficult: Create an anonymous tip line to report illegal AirBnB operations that violate zoning regulations. Have submitters provide the street address and URL of the AirBnB to make it easy. The person operating the AirBnB (or owner of the house…

> The person submitting the tip about an illegal AirBnB receives 25% of the fine. I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

> I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

1) If they are running an AirBnB, they're not your neighbor. They just own (or rent) property close to you.

2) There are a lot of negative unintended consequences to you because the unit was rented out. Why should you be expected to bear those costs and silently suffer when you can end it?

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Illegal Hotels" This always makes me laugh. A lot of hotel regulation was written with fire safety in mind (large building with a lot of small rooms in it and a high number of occupants). But AirBnBs... are just regular apartments so they don't break the fire safety rules (if the appartment is zoned for two occupants, really you aren't breaking any laws by housing two guests). The rest is simply NIMBY and cities try…

Allowing landlords to buy up housing supply to rent by the day drives up prices for the 90% who need a house to live in them not profit from them. It's disadvagous for society to allow it. Society doesn't have to let you live your life at everyone else's expense. If I had to guess the down votes are either for lack of awareness, facile dismissal, supreme self confidence not matched by good grasp of the topic or the o…

> Allowing landlords to buy up housing supply to rent by the day drives up prices for the 90% who need a house to live in them not profit from them

Notice how the conversation is always about a limited supply; never about how the cities could remove barriers for larger, denser constructions. Wonder why that is.

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

#260
post #33

A common quote on HN (and one that I firmly believe in) is: > It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. This so applies to AirBnB. It's not salary per se but those that benefit by renting out units or those for whom this has saved them money I've found typically get so defensive about AirBnB to the point of calling detractors NIMBYists and the like. I'…

> 4. Brings temporary residents into neighbourhoods that have no tie to that neighbourhood.

That's the most attractive thing about AirBnB for me, seeing real homes and not living off a hotel room.

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