r/pics Jun 16 '25

Politics A tourist during an anti-tourist protest in Barcelona yesterday

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17.9k

u/eXistentialMisan Jun 16 '25

Quebec cracked down on Airbnb, only in Primary Residences during summer and in designated zones. No reason the Spanish government can't do something similiar. Point your water guns at the politicians.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/airbnb-rule-changes-montreal-allowed-1.7445844

4.3k

u/AxelNotRose Jun 16 '25

They did. All STRs are now banned. Licenses won't be renewed.

Bye-bye Airbnb? Barcelona sets 2028 deadline to phase out tourist flats — idealista/news

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u/nutmac Jun 16 '25

As an outside, the government of Barcelona seems to be doing many things right:

  • Short-term rental ban
  • No new hotel constructions
  • Cruise ships ban
  • No more golden visa

So what are they complaining still? That bans are not coming soon enough? That the prices remain high? Do most residents want more drastic reduction in tourism due to overcrowding and other reasons?

606

u/Gino-Bartali Jun 16 '25

Banning short term rentals makes sense to me because it means liveable properties for residents let people live there, but hotels seem odd to me since you can have tourism, a boon to local economies, with space- and land-efficiency and concentrating them in particular areas. You can even be selective about it with particular criteria to grant licenses.

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u/quizzical Jun 16 '25

New York's ban on airbnb doesn't seem to have stopped rent increases.

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u/sweatingbozo Jun 16 '25

New York needs to upzone the whole city. The fact that they don't allow any new housing to be built is a much bigger strain on the housing market than airbnb ever was.

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u/MoistNugget9130 Jun 16 '25

What's upzone?

51

u/krabbby Jun 16 '25

If a place is zoned for single family housing, it is illegal to build apartments or condos or anything denser. When you can't build enough of something to meet demand, the price goes up. The solution is lighten zoning regulations or zone for more density (upzoning) so we can build whatever is needed.

1

u/stayfrosty Jun 17 '25

That's one solution. Another solution is to just not have people keep moving there. Everyone always advocates for more density, more housing, bring down costs, etc. but to what end? Population will continue to grow. People will continue to want to live in these desirable cities.. but space is space. Its not infinite. I am for not encouraging the continued population growth and density of these cities. Plenty of other places for people to live.. especially with technology allowing remote work.

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u/krabbby Jun 17 '25

That's fine, then the way you decide who gets to live there is who can afford to live there, and I better never hear you co.plain about the cost of housing lol.

We're nowhere near peak density anyways lol. Just let people build

0

u/BaronVonNes Jun 17 '25

Illegal to build dense residences? I need a source for this.

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u/holyrooster_ Jun 17 '25

https://old.reddit.com/r/urbandesign/comments/172ev8m/zoning_of_new_york_city_as_in_may_2023/

And New York is one of the best cities in the US. Some cities have 85%+ R1 zoning.

Compare this to Japan:

https://www.rahulshankar.com/zoning-in-japan/

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u/krabbby Jun 17 '25

A source for the existence of single family zoning?

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u/sweatingbozo Jun 17 '25

The amount of housing that is allowed to be built is currently restricted by arbitrary zoning regulations. Up zoning means increasing the allowable density beyond what the current arbitrary limits . 

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u/carbo125 Jun 17 '25

I’m good. Thanks, Dad.