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Here’s the abstract, with some paragraphs inserted for clarity
The proliferation of internet-based home-sharing platforms like Airbnb has raised heated debates, with many in the general public believing that the presence of Airbnb listings can lead to an increase in crime and disorder in residential neighborhoods.
Despite the importance of this debate to residents, policymakers, and other stakeholders, few studies have examined the causal linkage between Airbnb listings and crime in neighborhoods. We conduct the first such empirical test in Boston neighborhoods, focusing on two potential mechanisms: (1) the inflow of tourists might generate or attract crime; and (2) the creation of transient properties undermines local social dynamics.
Corresponding to these mechanisms, we examine whether the number of tourists (approximated with reviews) or the prevalence of listings predict more incidents of private conflict, social disorder, and violence both concurrently and in the following year.
We find evidence that increases in Airbnb listings–but not reviews–led to more violence in neighborhoods in later years. 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.
Mine are that STRs certainly have had a negative impact on communities where they have been allowed to grow unabated as they change the structure of local communities and criticallly push up house prices and create a shortage of long term affordable rentals for key and low paid workers .
We have seen this in the UK both in terms of coastal resorts and cities.
Mixed feelings I suppose. I’m not averse to STR’s in residential areas but when you look at the disaster Barcelona city council brought on themselves, you can see the down sides.
I think the thrust of their paper is that having STR’s erode the feeling of a neighbourhood, and I agree with them there. When I look at the massive increase of STR’s in our city, the bulk in the historic centre, it has changed the demographic considerably. The crime aspect is more difficult to gauge here, we are a very low crime city where the bulk of what crime there is tending to be against property, as opposed to the person.
We stayed in an Airbnb in Sevilla a couple of weeks ago, right in the centre, and the apartment block, as far as we could see, was mostly STR’s. At night, the majority of folks on the street were tourists, likely staying in blocks similar to the one we were in.
I know from the local press that Sevilla council is aware of the depopulation of the centre and is looking at solutions. Again, violent crime is in the minority, so I find it difficult to find any parallels with cities I know well. Maybe this trend they’ve highlighted is a US issue, I don’t really know…
I may have time to look at the paper later but it rings true as a concept. Obviously absentee landlords have been mucking things up for centuries.
Yes, this.
My neighborhood isn’t nice and my home is probably the nicest on my street. Just below me and to the east homes are 2x pricier and correspondingly nicer but no Airbnbs around me.
I’ve been saying it for years, tourists vs travelers. I get travelers. Tourists are trash. LOL.
My summer is tourist. Until this past year, high maintenance people, high property wear & tear.
For some glorious reason this year has been different.
My off-season renters are easy. They aren’t travelers but not tourists either. They are here for a month or two to play golf, get a sense of the area & do some retirement home hunting.
For sure. I hate it that “Airbnb” and “str” has become synonymous with entire place rentals.
No one would even know I rented out my guest room if I didn’t tell them. My guests have zero impact on the neighborhood.
Ours have a good impact on the neighborhood. All our neighbors know we do home-share Airbnb. They use our guest room as their guest rooms. Their guests book with us.
Well, I read most of it. They definitely got some things wrong in their estimations (read the first paragraph under Measuring Airbnb presence), and I suspect it could have skewed data between 2009 and 2015.
The conclusion is unusual: The rate of violent crimes is higher in neighborhoods with higher densities of Airbnb listings, but Airbnb guests (“tourists”) are not involved in those crimes.
The conclusions they give for cause and effect between Airbnb density and the increase in violent crime are weak, to put it mildly.
I will read it with a critical eye. It rings true intuitively but that does not necessarily make it statistically supported.
From personal experience, however, in large cities you can have a “tight” street or mini-neighborhood where the residents know one another and collectively keep an eye on things.
On my LTR South Philly street we have that lady who watches everything and everyone, including knowing who belongs to all the parked cars, the guys running their unofficial auto repair shop in the street, and the elderly gentleman who sweeps the trash off his stoop and the stoops of the neighbors on either side.
As boomers continue to retire, this will be more and more common. Retirees from high wage northern states will continue to buy winter homes in the Sunbelt, many of them owning two homes until the maintenance becomes burdensome as they age and they sell their northern one. This will continue to put a lot of stress on water resources, especially in CA, AZ, NM, CO, and TX, as well as housing. I’m wondering how long it will be before AZ has to limit construction in Phoenix and Tucson because there’s no water.
