[geebee]

People are getting mad at airbnb, but they should also be getting angry with the city, demanding more enforcement of zoning laws and building codes.

I'm not really against airbnb, but I do think that communities should have a choice. In short, I think that there should be some places in a city where people can trade their own right to run a hotel out of their apartment in exchange for a legally enforced expectation that their neighbors won't do this either.

The legal structure for this is zoning. In the past, it was difficult to violate these laws (pre-internet, it took quite a bit of effort to find tenants for an illegal hotel). As a result, enforcement could be indifferent.

Some laws become obsolete with new technology, others acquire new relevance and need to be dusted off and enforced more rigorously. Airbnb will most definitely not solve this problem, they stand to profit massively by denying people the arrangement I described above - agreeing not to turn your house or apartment into a hotel in exchange for an assurance that you will not have to live next to one. We need city government to take this on and do something.