On 21 June, Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni announced plans to ban short term rentals in the city starting in November 2028. The decision is designed to solve what Collboni described as “Barcelona’s biggest problem” – the housing crisis that has seen residents and workers priced out of the market – by returning the 10,000 apartments currently listed as short-term rentals on Airbnb and other platforms into the housing market.
Barcelona is not the only city to be strongly regulating – or even banning – short-term rentals outright. It has been illegal since September 2023 to rent out an apartment as a short-term let in New York City unless you are registered with the city and you are present in the apartment when someone is staying – a change also made to assuage the city’s housing crisis. Berlin banned Airbnbs and short-term rentals back in 2014, bringing them back under tight restrictions in 2018; and in many of California’s coastal cities, including Santa Monica, short-term rentals are either banned or highly restricted.
In British Columbia, Canada, Premier David Eby put the issue succinctly as he clarified new short-term rental rules: “If you’re flipping homes, if you’re buying places to do short-term rental, if you’re buying a home to leave it vacant, we have consistently, publicly, repeatedly sent the message: Do not compete with families and individuals that are looking for a place to live with your investment dollars.”
Airbnb is yet another monstrosity created by neoliberalism that is completely amoral and aims for profit above all things
Neo liberalism is a Boogeyman that means literally nothing thanks to everyone calling everyone else it. The real issue (with Airbnb) is that tech bros decided to create a business solution to something that in all honesty wasn’t a problem and now we’re here. The same can be said for Uber, and all the other “gig economy” companies.
In my country, Uber fixed a lot of problems that existed with Taxis.
These all could’ve been solved by a regular taxi company, but I guess there was no incentive to make the product any better to the customers.
Over here in Germany, they ran against a brick wall:
Oh:
All that sounds great. I’m not pro-Uber so much as I’m anti-Taxi (as they exist where I live), lol
Thankfully taxi services have finally gotten off their ass and most large cities have a taxi app. I used to fucking hate taxis because I never carried cash and the driver would get all huffy when I wanted to use card despite clearly having a card machine. I know most of it was they prefer cash to skirt taxes and also avoid the card fee (which they could add to the charge) but sorry, not sorry.
Uber came along and card was the default and you knew how much the ride would be before you even called them. No more guessing how much it would cost and having to pay attention to make sure the driver isn’t taking a scenic route to drive up the meter.
Unfortunately, at least in the US, Uber is just as bad. I’ve got a friend who’s blind and has a service dog - Uber drivers legally can’t decline a ride because he’s got a service dog, but very frequently they’d pull up, see the dog, and cancel the ride. Taxis are more likely to know and follow the law.
Pot, meet kettle.
Techbros are a very real and rather well defined term and collection of people.
Neoliberals not so much.
update:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Neo-Liberal
vs
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Techbro
notice how the definitions are much more consistent for a techbro.
Can you tell us more about these techbros? Are they with us now in this room? Do they sometimes tell you to do things, bad things?
I invite you to read my updated comment asshole :)
Nah I’m good, kettle.
You’re exactly as bad as the people you complain about.
Calm your nipples kettle.