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>>Many positives....buildings get to be maintained Sure, let's talk about second-order effects as if they somehow contradict the main issue of extracting all profit. Yes, to the extent there is investment that returns to the local economy, both as good/services purchased locally, and assets that remain local. that is a positive. But remember, these are ALL ostensibly profit-making ventures. To the extent the profit leaves the local/national economy, it is an absolute negative. If the landlord is a local, and their profits are spent locally, it is all positive. When the landlord is foreign or doesn't participate in the local economy, it is a hard negative. And a foreign or corporate-/oligarch-ish landlord has no incentive to put anything back into the local economy, or maintain the buildings beyond the minimum, so any positive effects are minimized contrasted with a local landlord who might take pride in his buildings & reputation and participate in community building because it is his community too. (Obviously exceptions exist, but exfiltrating the profits is a pure net negative.) AS for your AirBnB argument, it is fabricated fantasy. There may be isolated instances where it is a positive, but I've recently read reports from four continents how both movements and laws are underway to attempt to undo the damage AifBnBs do to communities; you conveniently ignore this while tacitly arguing against it. The fact is, even as an AirBnB guest, remote owners suck, while on-site owners are typically great (I just enjoyed one of the best examples last week). The remote owners superficially spiff up the place so it takes good pics, but do the absolute bare minimum of short-term maintenance, while the on-site owners renting out parts of their own building actually invest in the property. And overall, the influence of turning a substantial number of buildings into short-term rentals is pernicious. The people staying in those buildings by definition have no investment in the local economy, culture, or society, so they do nothing to help the commons issues. The reduced housing stock droves up rental rates for actual locals, allowing often remote landlords to extract more money from a declining community. It is effectively two methods of stripping assets and wealth from a community, effectively making it poorer — please explain how involuntary impoverishment makes improvements in the life of a community or it's individual people. |