Tourist do add a lot of culture. They are happy to be there and they add people on the street. They make socializing in local bars / restaurants more exciting.
I honestly can't see a negative.
Your prices are going up because it's New York. New York doesn't sleep but it's not the tourists. Buffalo is a great town. At night the downtown is empty at night. The drunk homeless are usually local.
And the thing is those local bars/restaurants often move out once there's no longer locals around. Tourist bars and restaurants move in, as is seen in several neighborhoods in Barcelona. Tourists feeling like they have the right to live in houses that the locals need is the issue, not tourism itself (at least for this specific one).
I still disagree that tourists add much to culture. Culture of an area is more than just a transient thing caused by people being on the street. It's the festivals, customs, etc of the people of the place. Tourists don't contribute to this in my opinion (except, perhaps, in negative ways when they stumble back to their AirBnB in a residential neighborhood waking up all the people who live there and who have to go to work tomorrow and leaving the area trashed).
The thing is, a lot of these are leaving. As the full-time residents move out of the city, the businesses that cater to them do too, and what's left is touristy things, making it harder for the few residents who do still live in an area overrun by short term rentals.
I'd also argue that visitors who only stay for a week or a month do not add to the culture of a town. They're there to take advantage of it without adding anything, and it ends up destroying it as all those who actually do create the culture get pushed out.
> Hanging a newcomers are not welcome here sign ignores that areas of New York start off as one group and constantly change as new waves of people come to the city.
That's not what I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that newcomers aren't welcome. I'm arguing that tourists who want to live as locals harm the area by forcing prices up for the residents of the town and forcing them outwards, as well as myriad other issues (e.g. coming home at all hours of the night loudly drunk while people are trying to sleep because they have to go to work tomorrow)