this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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US policymakers screwed themselves with crappy urban planning, leading to insufficient housing supply and bad transit options. Blaming AirBnB for high housing prices is like setting up a chain of dominos, and criticizing a guy who comes by and knocks it over. If it wasn't him, it would have been someone else, or the wind.
This is happening worldwide. It has very little to do with urban planning and more with lax homeownership restrictions that allows the wealthy and corporations to scoop up housing supply for profit.
"The wealthy and corporations" have choices of how to invest their money. If housing supply is sufficiently elastic to meet demand, they'll find somewhere else other than housing to put their money. Ain't nobody trying to corner the Chinese real estate market in 2024, for instance (*).
There are a few places where land shortages genuinely constrain housing supply, like Singapore and Hong Kong. But the US has tons of land; things are simply not well optimized. That, plus high interest rates due to fiscal/monetary mismanagement.
(*) Not saying the Chinese real estate market is worth emulating.
But it takes ages to build houses. You're again blaming something that's a given just to ignore that housing is a basic need. Obviously if the basic need is manipulated there's loads of money to be made.