https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/barcelona-pop....
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/catalonia-cracks-down-b...
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/barcelona-pop...
from >>40752920 ("Barcelona has a 16,000 people per square km density - that’s already one of the highest in Europe.")
Capital moves faster than meat space. To defend the human (affordable housing), you have to regulate. The whole "just build more, I want my AirBnB" argument boggles the mind considering the physical system constraints in play. Easier to just ban AirBnB.
They’ve also added a land tax on second homes to disincentivize hoarding of property (though this has had some perverse effects, notably, reducing long-term rental stock and moving into the owner-occupier segment).
It’s too early to evaluate outcomes, but this general approach seems more sensible than an outright ban. Tax the activity to reduce it somewhat whilst generating state revenue to fund programs to mitigate the negative effects.
1. To outlaw AirBnB. Except if people are staying in your house while you're there. Other than that, it should be illegal;
2. 80% Capital Gains Tax on property sales other than your primary residence, withheld at source.
3. Withold 40% of rent income at source, which can only be credited against taxable income in the state and country; and
4. Tax non-primary residences at 2% of their market value every year in addition to any property taxes; and
5. If landlords want out, let the state buy them out and use those properties for affordable housing for all citizens. The UK previously came "dangerously" close to eliminating landlords this way last century [1].
EDIT: another big one:
6. Ban HOAs. Entirely. They are anachronism invented to enforce segregation. Any function they perform (eg picking up trash, tending communal parks) is and should be the function of local government, which is democratic. HOAs are not.
Lastly, the one exception I would carve out is for multi-families and ADUs (accessory dwelling units). These were once commonplace but are now prohibited in most of the US.
Just like renting out a room in your house while you're there, ADUs mean the landlord is also affected by any potential misdeeds or abuse by the tenant so is invested in that not happening.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-...
https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council...
It would make sense to increase density around existing rail infrastructure. Barcelona has 7700 km2 of space, that's a lot. They have only 750 persons per km2 on average. Especially the outskirts of the province have really bad density. For example, Sant Joan de Vilatorrada has only 660 inhabitants per km^2 and it is only 3 km from the railway station, 80 min from the Sants station. That density is worse than Phoenix, Arizona, which has 1198/km2. So there is lots of available space.
Note that these numbers are of the Province of Barcelona. I don't know why you'd restrain yourself to the city proper. Here is a dense map of rail: https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/es/bcn/bcn-region-map.htm
https://www.amb.cat/en/web/area-metropolitana/coneixer-l-are...
Will this move solve the problem? No, but what alternative are you comparing it to where it fares so poorly?
I suspect even the staunchest proponents of unregulated construction of denser housing would only claim that it mitigates the problems of housing affordability, not that it solves them. This new STR policy could be one of many pieces of the puzzle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_...
As you see, Spain has 12 cities among the top 38 cities in Europe. L'Hospitalet (an urban centre close to Barcelona) is densest than Paris.
The population growth is largely due to rich foreigners moving into the city:
"I was born and raised in Barcelona, no longer live there however. I didn't remember how bad it was until I went to visit my family last summer. Me and some friends went to walk around the center and the girl that took our orders at a Pans&Company didn't even know Spanish or Catalan, only English. It was honestly quite depressing. She was surprised we didn't open the conversation with English."
https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/comments/1833ub1/comment/k...
https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-u...
People say that it has become difficult to hear Catalan or Spanish being spoken in the city center and there are waitresses who don't know Spanish. Some started to say that this is not a case of gentrification, but a colonization.
And really, not everyone is going to move somewhere. You could not pay me enough to live in NYC or San Francisco. People who love NYC would probably be bored in my small city.
Burdensome parking mandates are being eliminated or reduced across the country, as one example.
One way to try to get more places to reform on a similar timeline is to join a nationwide group, like https://new.yimbyaction.org/ or https://welcomingneighbors.us/
Yes and its a major problem. Some locations are already acting out.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/portugal-ends-golden-...
> This is a distraction for an easy target. It won't help and it will make the quality of hotels worse.
Its not a distraction - its just a start. And hotel quality is still what it was before Airbnb and it will stay like that after airbnb goes away. The standards that national and international tourism institutions apply to the hotels has not changed one iota because of airbnb.
> But hey, instead of fixing the real problems
This is the real problem.
https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-u...
The reality of the matter is that what's happening in Barcelona ended up resembling more a colonization when tourism got combined with golden visas that allow rich foreigners and investment funds to scoop up local housing and the recent digital nomad wave. There are now more foreigners in the city center than locals and you are hard pressed to hear Spanish or Catalan being spoken around the place.
"I was born and raised in Barcelona, no longer live there however. I didn't remember how bad it was until I went to visit my family last summer. Me and some friends went to walk around the center and the girl that took our orders at a Pans&Company didn't even know Spanish or Catalan, only English. It was honestly quite depressing. She was surprised we didn't open the conversation with English."
https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/comments/1833ub1/comment/k...
1) The effects of tourism on housing prices: applying a difference-indifferences methodology to the Portuguese market. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJHMA-04...
> Following the liberalization [allowing more AirBNBs], for each one percentage point increase in the share of STR as a percentage of the housing stock, housing prices increased 27.4% and 16.1% in the Lisbon and Porto MSA municipalities most exposed to STR, respectively. These results represent a much higher impact than that estimated in previous studies (Franco and Santos, 2021)
2) The impact of Airbnb on residential property values and rents: Evidence from Portugal https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01660...
> This article quantifies the impact of Airbnb’s short-term rentals on housing affordability in Portugal.
> We find that on average a 1pp increase in a municipality Airbnb share results in a 3.7% increase in house prices.
As a share of the total number of people employed in New Zealand, direct tourism employment was 6.7 percent.
I think the main problem with tourism is that it is a luxury service and tourism income shrinks when the world economy stinks. The other issue is that many tourists are rude and unthankful, so it can be unpleasant working in a service industry, being a servant to well-off tourists.
New Zealand needs export income. Some of our product exports are worse for New Zealand than tourism (some farming particularly has negative effects and can have poor profits).
I wonder if part of the reason why Barcelona has population growth is because it has tourism income and jobs? Remove tourism and what happens next?
And it sucks in New Zealand that some of the most beautiful places are crowded and almost owned by tourists. Literally owned by tourists when we let foreigners buy property here and our current government wants to allow that again.
That's unintelligible. With that logic, every law and regulation is authoritarian.
> all the while fostering resentment and opening up increasingly authoritarian measures in the future
Here's the resentment:
https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2023/10/09/fed-u...
And yes, the locals want more authoritarianism to keep away the overcrowding tourists, rich foreigners, and people who think like you. That's what the problem needs and what people like you understand.
This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Edit: yikes, you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and badly—examples:
We have to ban accounts that keep doing this, so please stop doing this, and please make sure you're not using HN primarily for political or ideological battle.
(I suppose I should add the standard disclaimer that no, we don't care about your views. We care about your following the rules and using the site as intended, same as with any other user.)
https://www.google.com/maps/search/barcelona+hotels/@41.3806...
The larger context is Spain’s population is flat with declines in the last 24 months and trend likely to continue in the coming decades. Barcelona’s population peaked in 1979 and only recently recovered to the level seen in 1990. So they likely don’t actually need to add significant housing long term. Freeing up AirBnB apartments in the short term looks like a reasonable solution until population decline kicks in and removes the need for extra housing.
https://datacommons.org/place/wikidataId/Q1492?utm_medium=ex...
> "Spain is Europe’s fastest-growing big economy. Nearly three-quarters of the country’s recent growth and one in four new jobs are linked to tourism"
https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/hotel
Note that style of construction does not seem to be a factor. Many hotels offer freestanding villas or cabins, practically small (sometimes even not so small) houses, and have for a long time. Chains like Residence Inn, Homewood Suites, or Extended Stay America have likewise offered hotel accommodation in the physical form of an apartment for almost as long. Personally, I think the inclusion of housekeeping services during a stay is a big differentiator, perhaps because it demonstrates intent to serve a transient clientele. By contrast, a "dual use" house or apartment that is owner occupied part of the time and rented out part of the time does not show such intent. Neither do the illegal sublets that are behind many Airbnb rentals.
In other words, the physical similarity between a suite hotel (like the one I'm in) and apartments doesn't seem determinative. Rather, what seems to matter is the financial difference between a nightly (or perhaps weekly) guest vs. a longer term lessee. I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but it does explain why different types of levels of regulation are applicable to each.
P.S. The ones "escaping regulation" are the Airbnbs, not the hotels. Hotels are subject to much more stringent standards wrt safety, sanitation, privacy, billing, etc.
Spanish wages grew only 2.7%/yr L10Y [1], and its nominal GDP/capita looks completely flat [2].
This explains why the city is affordable for international tourists but not locals. Regardless, a high "tourist tax" would probably be better for their economy than an outright ban.
[1] https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Tabla.htm?t=59150
[2] Compare https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=spain+gdp+per+capita+10... vs https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=USA+gdp+per+capita+10+y...
> the rules seem to be getting applied selectively
Every commenter with strong passions feels like the mods apply the rules selectively and must therefore be on the other side. The people you disagree with are just as sure that we're secretly on your side. I say that with confidence even though I don't remember anything about your views at this moment, nor which side any of you are on.
The reason is sample bias. Everyone notices other people breaking the rules, but which cases you notice depends on your pre-existing views. What we (I mean all of us, i.e. humans generally) notice is governed by what we dislike [1]. We assign the most meaning to the cases that feel most unfair or offensive to us. Since everyone selects these based on their own feelings, opposite feelings lead to different samples and opposite conclusions.
When you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we just didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted. Also, I'm the only moderator who responds publicly and I can only write so much—not just because I have other responsibilities to worry about, but also because if I make even a slight mistake, it can (and often has) made a situation worse. It's a little bit like writing software in, I don't know, Agda as opposed to JS or something. You can't do it as fast or as much.
Which posts I respond to vs. not is determined by two factors: (a) what has been brought to my attention by others; and (b) randomness. If you or anyone sees a post that ought to be moderated, you can bring it to our/my attention by either flagging it (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag for how), or in egregious cases, by emailing hn@ycombinator.com.
Moderation can't be consistent in any way that would require reviewing all posts, but it can be relatively [2] consistent as long as we work with random-enough samples and handle them in a principled-enough way. That's what we aspire to. We're not perfect at it, but we do at least have years of practice.
This works well enough to signal to most of the community that (a) HN is moderated, and (b) that it's moderated reasonably fairly [3]. But it leaves many cases that don't get moderated all, which means there are plenty of data points which people can select to draw whatever conclusions they want to about HN moderation—and believe me, they do!
We've all had this experience in other contexts. Take cops and speeding tickets. There's always a "me? why me?" reaction when you get pulled over. Plenty of other cars were speeding faster! The cops must have ulterior motives for picking on me [4]. Even if my brain knows about random samples, the feelings still work this way. Another example is sports and referees. The passionate fans are the quickest to feel that the refs are making calls unfairly, and it always feels like the calls are unfair against your team.
One last point, in the unlikely event that you read this far... when I said "we don't care about your views" I did not mean to belittle your views or to imply that they're about something unimportant. On the contrary, the divisive topics are extremely important—far more important than most things that appear on HN. I just meant that we don't (or at least try our best not to) consider your views when making moderation calls. And of course by "you" I don't just mean you personally, I mean everybody.
---
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2] I say 'relatively' because this is a complex problem with lots of failure modes, but they don't change the important point above.
[3] Wait, haven't I just contradicted myself, after talking about all the users who feel we're unfair? No, because the driving factor is the passions of the perceiver. The more passionately you (i.e. anyone) feels about a topic, the more this dynamic kicks in. Most of the community doesn't have strong passions on a given topic, so even when they see the same data points as you, they won't select them as evidence of unfairness. They'll also be more likely to notice cases of the mods scolding the other side as well, and to assign equal weight to those. In other words, the very things that indicate unfairness to you will feel like fairness to them. This is how the same moderation approach can both reassure the majority while at the same time convincing passionate partisans (on any side of any topic) that the system is biased against them. For a couple collections of vivid examples, see >>26148870 .
[4] And maybe they do? This argument doesn't prove there's no bias; it just shows that any system, even the most unbiased, will produce strong feelings of bias no matter what you do.
3.9% of Barcelona's GDP in 2022.
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1346730/tourism-contribu...
5.4% of Catalonia's GDP in 2022.
Source: https://economia.gencat.cat/web/.content/70_economia_catalan...
11.6% of Spain's GDP in 2022.
Source: https://www.bde.es/f/webbe/GAP/Secciones/SalaPrensa/Interven...
Let's look at the bay's wage growth[0]: 11% (or ~1%/yr) from 2010-2020, but they removed CPI-U inflation[1], so it's something higher (annual was ~1-3% in that time period). Which puts the bay area housing at 5%+ higher growth, 2x to 7x worse than Spain.
So, once again - Spain is doing well when it comes to housing prices. Tourism frustrates locals because they think it's increased their housing costs wildly - but in fact it's because their economy is switching to a tourist economy unless they find an industry to grow.
[0]: https://bayareaequityatlas.org/indicators/income-growth?year... [1]: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SA0&output_view=pct_...
An apples-to-apples comparison illustrates my point:
L10Y cumulative change in:
Bay Area rent: +46.0% [0]
Bay Area wages: +45.7% [1]
Vs:
Barcelona rent: +70% (if we believe TFA)
Spain wages: +30% [2]
Or:
Cumulative 2010-2020 change in:
Bay Area rent: +57% [0]
Bay Area wages: +34% [1]
which also looks bad (but not as bad as Barcelona L10Y). Indeed, there were lots of complaints about housing costs in SF then.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA422SEHA [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SMU06418840500000003 [2] https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Tabla.htm?t=59150