Airbnb Research Paper

The documentary San Francisco 2.0 examines how San Francisco city officials have given tax breaks to the Silicon Valley tech industry to move to San Francisco. These new techs companies have brought in a lot of wealth to the city, but at a cost. The majority of the low-income natives are being evicted or having their rents raised so high that they can't afford them. The gentrification of the city has impacted low-income districts (for example, the mission district known for its Latin immigrants) that the residents and the culture are being displaced. I believe the documentary is important for the study of the issue of gentrification because San Fransisco was known for being-counter culture, caring for the arts and for civil progress. The housing

In AirBnB’s hosts offers their homes to guests in exchange for money. Visitors will document their experience online.

The obstacles landlords have to overcome causes them to lose their motivation to invest in rental properties and they instead flock towards other housing options to include condominiums, office towers, and hotels.

The problem is, some of these people aren’t on the streets because they are jobless; many are employed. The problem is bigger than that. Part of it is because of housing. People would think that, “Hey! What if we build more houses?” Well, in Silicon Valley, housing is expensive, very, expensive. According Salon.com, in 2016, “The San Jose-Santa Clara County metro area has a median home price of $1 million.” while average apartment rent price reached $2,361 in 2016, according to https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/04/18/apartment-rent-growth-slows-in-silicon-valley-but.html. On the Mercury News, “A median one-bedroom went for $2,120 and a two-bedroom for $2,660 in Mountain View. Rents stood at $2,150 for a one-bedroom and $2,690 in Santa Clara; and $2,470 and

Affordable housing has become the paramount issue of cities and dense urban areas. San Francisco is the posterchild of an unaffordable city that regardless of immense investment from blue chip firms like Google, Facebook, and their ilk of startups evaluated at $1 billion or more, policymakers and elected officials must wrestle with the housing affordability crisis that is considered endogenous to swaths of homelessness and record statistics on crime. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has made affordable housing the centerpiece of his legislation and championed the cause as a social justice issue—neighborhoods must remain affordable to maintain diversity for all races, ethnicities, and low-income families. A small sample of 827 New Yorkers by the NY1-Baruch College City Poll found the main concern of respondents was affordable housing while crime, jobs, and homelessness were peripheral problems (Cuza, 2016). The public discourse on how to address housing across the United States has pointed to negative externalities that surround rent-regulation and homeownership. Conversely, for this essay I will present various cases in order to illustrate the housing crunch is influenced less by housing and land regulations, or antagonistic homeowners but is induced by global market forces.

“I took a trip to Oakland, California and fell in love with the area. We stayed at an Air B&B for the three days of our stay and the house was absolutely beautiful, it looked like my dream home. Despite all the glitz and glamour around us we noticed a large amount of homelessness compared to Columbus. We found out that this property is not someone’s home but a house used strictly as an Air B&B. When you hear something like that and see the amount of homelessness it makes you wonder how many of these homes are strictly for show? So after researching I found out, the reason for the rampant homelessness can be attributed to large increases in rent. Even worse, the cause for the increase is due to Silicon Valley” (Kasongo, 2017). Unfortunately, rent increasing virtually overnight is the reality of many low-income families. This situation is called gentrification and is felt throughout the world, from the Midwest, East coast or even Western Europe, no region is immune to this process. Gentrification in the Midwest is extensive and wide causing the displacement of many low-income minority residents which can lead to even bigger issues.

When cities begin their journey of being gentrified, many locals become displaced. Displacement is when locals are uprooted from their homes, due to outside factors, and forced to move elsewhere. According to the Urban Displacement Project conducted by U.C. Berkeley, “Gentrification results from both flows of capital and people. The extent to which gentrification is linked to racial transition differs across neighborhood contexts... Displacement takes many different forms—direct and indirect, physical or economic, and exclusionary—and may result from either investment or disinvestment” (U.C. Berkeley). Many people are coming into San Francisco’s Bay Area because of how diverse each element is. However, according to Census numbers, between 1990 and 2010, 35.7% of San Francisco’s black population dwindled (Bliss). 35.7% of the black community within San Francisco suffered from displacement. An additional 53% of low-income households in the Bay Area are at risk for displacement and gentrification (U.C. Berkeley). This has definitely left a dent within the diversity reputation held up by the Bay Area. When such a strong large part of people leave, The City will experience a shift in culture and community. Whether, it is the real estate, the food, the different cultures, the Bay Area has always been known for being different. Perhaps, this is why so many outsiders are coming in and buying up every piece of land they can. Whether their intentions were to purchase land and

Gentrification is a major reason for the increase in rent prices throughout New York City. Harlem rent prices have gone up over the past years because of new condominiums and businesses that are being built in neighborhoods. The displacement of residents leads to an increase of people becoming homeless in the city. According to the author, Ivan Pereira, “Harlem saw a 9.4 % average rent price increase during that same period from $2,191 last year to $ 2,397 in January” (Pereira 1). The change causes longtime residents to move out because of a variety of factors including unaffordability, pressure from property owners, diminishing or lack of stores that cater to them and many more. The more condominiums and business’s being built makes living

Acquired spacial capital leads to privilege over resources and other people. The space available to certain residents is where they will end up, and if there is no opportunity for growth of capital they will always be stuck in the same class bracket. Developers use of local land policies are an example of spatial discrimination (Self, 278). A form of spacial discrimination is the politics of mobility in San Francisco, which increases the gentrification of neighborhoods and reduces the amount of space available to build housing (Henderson, 78). Privileged dot-commers obtained cultural and social capital had during the internet boom, which allowed them to change the entire culture of some neighborhoods (Center, 216). Spatial capital and privilege are key factors of the threat of gentrification on the Bay Area, which contribute to

We looked at a variety of ways to help alleviate this cost. Since one of the main issues causing high living costs in the Bay Area is shortage of housing one of the possible solutions could be building more housing. Possible problems here are that San Francisco itself is not too big of a city and in most cities of this type in the world the population density is increased by building tall buildings –

However, a highly affected area of gentrification, in turn with living situations, is the suffering of local businesses. The appeal of gentrified neighborhoods has raised commercial rents to the point where small-scale tenants cannot afford to pay them, even at a steady profit. This situation has many titles, but most appropriately it has been named hyper gentrification. It is described as a mature stage during gentrification when not only are residents displaced, but, when commercial real reaches a market value difficult for anyone but a national or global corporation to pay, forcing businesses to also be displaced. It has the same benefit as displacing a common resident would in the end, higher profit for the larger owner (Ehrenhalt,

People who believe it is good to have gentrification in urban cities do so due to the fact that it increases property values and brings money and publicity to the city as well. The reasons why one would say that it’s a not so good thing to have happen to their city is basically for the same reasons. The increase of property values and introduction of bigger companies basically forces low income, working class families out of their apartments and small, family owned businesses to have to close. According to an online New York Times article about the gentrification in San

In San Fransisco there’s a site called Rentberry that allows renters to bid on apartments, similar to Ebay. Renters set a rent price, deposit, and other negotiables and the best offer gets the apartment. Services similar to Rentberry are popping up across the country as Americans who rent property surpassed those who own their own property. In half of the U.S’s 100 largest cities renters make up more than half of the people living in the city. The idea for Rentberry came from the concept that Americans bid on homes to own, so why not bid on rental properties. Critics claim that rent prices will rise 5% because of the expansion of rent-bidding. However, results found that rent actually decreased by 5.1% on average. Economists say that there

Airbnb is a short-term accommodation leasing and renting company which turns residential houses into tourist marketplace. Critics believe that this company is running illegal hotels that are against the health and safety regulations. Therefore, last year Airbnb was banned in certain areas and cities.

Gentrification is a problem that is occurring in many communities. The city of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles is one of the communities that the citizens of the community are notice new apartments build, galleries owner by rich people, and high prices for apartment the people are not able to afford to live there. Because the renewal of neighborhood environments that transform and attract middle and upper-class households and investors, creating problems for those who cannot afford rises of rents. According to O’Regan, “some of the biggest concerns about gentrification-potential displacement and increased rent burdens-are driven by rent or housing cost increases” (152). The only way to