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Comment by bantunes | Hacker News Reader

The golden visa program was put forward as a "job creation" initiative, but results show it generated as little as 280 jobs in a decade https://www.publico.pt/2022/11/07/politica/noticia/decada-vi...

It was mostly used for wealthy foreigners to acquire real estate, hence the ire. As for AirBnb, it has decimated historical neighbourhoods in Lisbon and turned its historical areas into a kind of theme park.

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AirBnb is similarly catching flak for much of Prague's recent spike in housing costs too, and tbh I don't think it's unjustified.

Which should be bringing money into Lisbon to the net benefit of all people living there. If most of the theme park money isn't staying in Portugal then they should pass some legislation to favor the local economy.

it could be doing more damage because high house prices destroy local economy.

When willvl the West finally learns the lesson that unaffordable realestate is uneconomic suicide just like unaffordable food would be

They don't just destroy the local economy. They also destroy trust in politics - always fragile at best - and hugely increase the odds of a racist/fascist government.

We've already seen this in the UK, where a drum beat of race hate aimed at immigrants and refugees has been used to misdirect the population away from neoliberal austerity and "low tax, small government" (big profit) policies.

Which - not coincidentally - include a huge amount of literal rent seeking and property profiteering.

100%

That's a tough sell for, say, a barman whose landlord realises they can double their rental income by doing short-term lets. Just because there's suddenly a lot of money flowing in, doesn't mean all people immediately benefit (or even eventually benefit), and in the meantime those who already lived there suffer an explosion in prices for renting and buying property.

Sounds like they should establish rent control and lodging tax on hotels/airbnbs/shortstays.

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