Comment

Comment by leoedin

I think the resentment comes from the fact that, for many large cities, the tourism aspect is a very small part of the city. Take for example the city I grew up in - Edinburgh. Tourism contributes £1.3bn to the cities economy, but the city has a GDP of £26bn. So tourism is 5% of GDP, yet it has a completely disproportionate impact on the city centre.

If you play "count the lockboxes" in the centre you realise almost every flat in the centre is an AirBnB. Those flats take in 4x what a normal rented flat will make, so of course there's a strong incentive for landlords to rent on AirBnB. Right now the city is going through a huge housing shortage - people are having to defer degree courses or live outside the city because they literally can't find anywhere to rent.

Of course, tourists aren't the only cause of this. There's a huge intergenerational issue (I know countless people in their 60s living in very large houses), and the city has historically been very conservative about building new houses to match population growth.

Ultimately the city is owned and run mostly by the people who live there. Most of them have no choice about the level of tourism, and it's pretty reasonable to want to have a discussion about whether you really want to have your city turned into a theme park.

parent leoedin 3 years ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton