Hacker News Reader

Comment by stingraycharles | Hacker News Reader

This type is of stuff is why cities have zoning, and I feel like all this Airbnb discussion is just people realizing why things were like they were.

As a tourist who occasionally used Airbnb myself, of course I enjoy it but it’s not like I couldn’t enjoy a hotel. I completely understand why it’s bad for communities. There must be some middle ground to be reached here, but when in doubt, I would err on the side of communities, not the Airbnb property owners; the negative impact it has on communities is far worse than the positive impact it has on tourism.

View on HN

I guess as a tourist with a family, it's completely different. Hotels suck for small kids. Having a room with a door that can close, and a space outside is such a massively different experience than a hotel room.

Maybe I'm privileged? I don't want to sound tone deaf if I am, but hotels have always been fine for my family on short trips. Kids and all. It's not that long, for me a max of a few days. Typically, even for other families max would be maybe 2 or 3 weeks. Normally much shorter than that. I don't think having to use hotels for short term stays is all that inconvenient.

I confess to using apartments for long term rentals. The last time we were in Paris, I took an apartment for the 3 months of the summer through a service that's something like airbnb. That was better for the kids. But that's also longer term stuff.

Hotels are honestly not all that terrible for short term family stays. If you have to go somewhere in France long term, airbnb would likely still be available to you.

How old are your kids? Mine go to sleep at 7:30, and sleep for 12 hours. It's pretty well impossible to do that when you're all in the same room. There's also no room for play in a hotel room without bouncing off the walls. It's fine sure, but being able to rent something different is a much more enjoyable experience for my family. Especially if we were going to meet someone somewhere and can do a shared accommodation.

Thankfully more hotels have realized this and seen where ABB was winning. At least around western Europe it is ever more common to have kitchen, baby cots, suites without dangerous staircases, patios/gardens/baby-pools etc. Once kids are >=5, they can sit and dine in restaurants, enjoy buffets, etc, so the classic hotels become comfortable again.

I think this talk of "community" is a bunch of hogwash. People living in cities don't have communities, they barely know each other.

What they are really protesting is being unable to afford rising rent, which is caused by a lack of apartments, which is somewhat exacerbated by Airbnb, but zoning laws have a far bigger impact.

The same people who can't afford the rent anymore wouldn't want to live in (or next to) a highrise though, so the zoning laws still make sense.

I don't know why you say that. People that live in a place get involved in local things. Events, meet ups, classes. Vacationers don't do that, they might drop in, but they're not a regular person showing up.

This is pretty true for very high-density buildings in North American cities. It might be less true in lower-density areas in North America, and the rest of the world in general.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com