Airbnb Locations in New York City

New York City is a city of renters, yet despite its high stock of rent regulated housing, in 2015, rents continue to rise. Income levels for the average New Yorker haven't kept pace, and affordability is at record lows. Housing is scarce; homelessness levels are increasing; food insecurity is growing; and economic and racial inequality rates in New York City are near the highest in the United States.

It's at this time that short term rental platforms, dominated by Airbnb, have entered the market, and grown to have listings of tens of thousands of rooms and entire apartments. Airbnb addresses the demand for tourist accommodation and creates an income stream for "hosts," and ignores both the need for and loss of housing.

Behind buzzwords like "the sharing economy" and "disruptive," Airbnb as a platform simply allows many of their hosts to operate unlicensed, unregulated and untaxed hotels in residential neighborhoods.

The taxes that Airbnb refuses to collect for the city are being used as leverage in Airbnb's corporate lobbying and marketing campaigns to force the city and state to legitimize their business model and legalize Airbnb hosts' activities.

This "bribe" hides the fact that Airbnb is enabling a massive abuse of housing in New York City, and in particular, in rapidly changing and gentrifying neighborhoods.

Here is a map of Airbnb locations in NYC

The data for this map comes from a site called Inside Airbnb; Adding data to the debate

You can find more info on this site.

This is a picture of an Airbnb ad!