Are Short-term Holiday Rentals Destroying Communities?
Cities around the world are again competing for tourist business as people resume travel after the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic. But local people in some go-to destinations say the popularity of short-term homestay rentals is a threat to their future.
Millions of people worldwide regularly choose to book short stays in rooms or entire properties through online platforms such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, enticed by the amenities offered by private hosts.
But while the renewed interest in travel in recent months has pushed Airbnb’s profits to new highs, people living in tourism hotspots say landlords and developers have sought to push them out to develop properties for lucrative short-term holiday rentals.
Tenants pressured to leave their homes often find it impossible to find other places in the immediate vicinity. Many have little option but to move further away, hampering access to workplaces, schools, and grocery markets at a time when food and fuel prices are stubbornly high. Local people trying to buy their first home say they have been priced out as speculators snap up properties for short-term let – often sight unseen.
While some city authorities have sought to walk a line between welcoming tourism and supporting local tenants and first-time buyers, some landlords say that local regulations are making it more difficult for them to make extra money through Airbnb and other platforms. They contrast their listing of a single property with the behaviour of hosting companies that offer a range of properties to tourists and business travellers. Home rental platforms such as Airbnb say they are providing an in-demand service that benefits both tourists and homeowners.
In this episode of The Stream, we’ll look at the impact that short-term holiday lets are having on local people in cities and other tourist destinations, and ask what they mean for community life.
2023
CCCBLAB Interview: ‘The city is the artifact that will enable collective survival’
An interview with architect and urban planner Mar Santamaria on the present and future challenges of contemporary cities, public policies, data and urban rights by Nuria Moliner for CCCBLAB (Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona).
2022
topics: Health, Housing, Commerce, Inequality, Livability, Mobility, Public space, Tourism
The architects Mar Santamaría and Pablo Martínez are “urban innovators”. That is the term with which describes the work they carry out at 300.000 Km/s, their office. In addition to presenting urban projects, they investigate life in cities through data, generating insightful cartographies.
Fundación Arquitectura y Sociedad interviews Mar Santamaría and Pablo Martínez on livable cities and social justice.
A healthy city needs to protect the quality of the air, silence and common goods. In order to guarantee spatial justice, the protection to citizens must be collective.
Last Mile, el estudio sobre el potencial de la ciclologística de Barcelona
Pablo Martínez, co-founder of 300.000 km/s talks about Last Mile, a last-mile delivery data model for the city of Barcelona, and the potencial of cycling in Barcelona.
Atascos, infraviviendas y ni un restaurante con mesas libres: es hora de hablar de la España Apretujada
Es el contraplano de la España Vacía y afronta su propio problema: el de colapso. "Están aplicando políticas avariciosas y egoístas", denuncian los expertos en planificación urbana
2021
“Montjuïc no és el pati del darrere de res, sinó un espai central i necessari”
"In the end Montjuïc has be the great park that Barcelona does not have and not a park with a single label, such as culture or sport", diagnoses the architect Mar Santamaria, from the 300,000 Km/s team, which followed the participatory process and drafted the new project. One of the conclusions of the process was, precisely, to eliminate any label of use: Montjuïc is, according to the last urban project, an equipped park. "What is clear, too, is that it must be kept as a park, we cannot build more on it, nor increase the waterproof surface. We mustn’t think that Montjuïc is the backyard of anything, but a central and necessary space. The big park the city doesn’t have.”
2021
La reconstrucción del templete del metro Gran Vía: ¿homenaje o pastiche?
La estación madrileña reabre a finales de julio, después de tres años en obras, con una nueva incorporación: una estructura de granito que recrea la original que Antonio Palacios diseñó hace 100 años para servir de acceso a este metro
2021
Tots el detalls d'”Aire”, la proposta catalana a la 17a Biennal d’Arquitectura de Venècia