ITT there seems to be a lot of sentiment that city/county local governments shouldn't be able to implement policy on anything but the most trivial matters. As if politicians and corporations residing in other cities are better suited to make impactful local policy. I dont get it...

Then again I am still scathing from a similar case study in my home town of San Diego, with Airbnb. Our city council passed some policies to regulate whole-home short term vacation rentals in residential areas. It limited whole-home short-term Airbnb/VRBO rentals to 6-months per year (you could still rent out a spare room or granny flat on Airbnb as much as you want).

Airbnb wasn't having it. They hired a gazillion signature gatherers to brute force a public ballot measure. I'm talking about a signature gathering army; they were such a presence/nuisance it led to absurdities like Trader Joe's filing a lawsuit against Airbnb [1].

To be clear, Airbnb is killing San Diego's local renter market. Over the last 5 years, thousands of rental properties have been converted to short-term Airbnb rentals. These images speak for themselves: https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr

This is on the heels of an independent consulting firm warning that sd housing and rental prices are rising at an alarming rate, and F grade in new housing development (blame SANDAG?), and single-family home prices slipping out of reach of median income earners (further saturating the apartment rental market) [2].

The natural reaction was SD locals filling town-hall meetings for several solid months, demanding city council take action (it was a sight to behold, because, I mean, when do you ever hear your friends say 'I just got back from a town hall meeting?'). And they did. And everyone cheered.

And then a week later it was all over.

The funny thing is; it won't even be a ballot measure. Airbnb understood that if they got the minimum number of signatures, they could force san diego city council to either (1) rescind the policies they just passed and start over on new policy more favorable to Airbnb - it had to be since laws require resubmissions after a petition to be substantially different; or (2) no policy whatsoever, until a formal ballot measure could be put in front of voters (i.e. 2+ years of no policy & airbnb propaganda).

TLDR; a silicon valley company has more sustained influence on san diego rental/housing policy than san diego elected officials

1. https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-filed-a...

2. http://londonmoeder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-...