The Short-Term Rental Model for Shrinking Places

Skift Take The short-term rental fight was designed for cities running out of homes. A growing number of places face the opposite problem with population decline: too many homes and too few people. For more than a decade, the short-term rental debate has been organized around scarcity. New York, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and other major cities have spent years asking essentially the same question: what happens when visitors and residents compete for the same limited supply of housing? The regulations have differed, but the underlying logic has been consistent. In places where homes are scarce, converting them into tourist accommodation has a cost. New York’s Local Law 18 is one of the clearest examples of how far that logic has gone. After it took effect in September 2023, Airbnb listings for stays under 30 days fell 83% in a year, from 21,900 to 3,700. Barcelona has taken an even harder line. The evidence behind these policies is real: one widely cited study estimated that Airbnb activity raised average rents in Barcelona by 1.9%, and by roughly 7% in the neighborhoods with the most Airbnb activity. In housing-constrained cities, the case for regulation is well estab