The Airbnb Duality

Is Airbnb good or bad for a city? In this episode we talk about:
- How Airbnb makes travel easier
- The difference between intention and economic effect
- The economics of a tourist destination
- Gentrification
- Bad Airbnb experiences
- Our experiences both running and living in Airbnbs

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Detailed Show Notes

(0:00) Preamble

(2:30) Intro to Airbnb and the topic

(3:10) Cleaning fees are ridiculous!

(4:45) The Seller Experience

(8:00) Benefits and economics & challenges

(11:40) Seasonality of the trade

(13:00) False hopes, trickery & exploitation

(14:45) Short term vs long term impact

(15:55) A fringe income stream to finance other purchases

(17:20) Externalities and knock-on effects

(18:20) Investing and how the pandemic impacted those investors

(20:14) How does city culture get impacted? Does it cause gentrification?

(22:17) Urbanization, wealth migration and the forces that interact with tourism

(23:47) Changes in Bo-kaap

(25:31) Movement dynamics in and out of cities and the future directions for Airbnb

(27:02) Infrastructure considerations for distributed living, impacts on neighborhoods, towns and sense-of-place.

(31:13) Tourism during the pandemic and before, skiing season

(33:10) What oversight do we need for Airbnb? Herman has some thoughts

(35:04) Jason has some thoughts, income and wealth inequality.

(37:35) Distributing new apartments to locals, effect for service economy, what it's like in Aspen.