Airbnb And The Unstoppable Rise Of The Share Economy

Re:Airbnb And The Unstoppable Rise Of The Share Economy by rayiner on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @08:10PM (#5106461)

First, crime has been falling in American cities almost monotonically since the 1980's, aside from a slight uptick in the last several years as a result of the recession.

Second, nobody thinks that Section 8 doesn't increase crime in nicer neighborhoods. The rationale is that spreading out the poor families via Section 8 reduces overall crime in the city versus concentrating them into the projects.

I used to live in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Chicago, and many of the surrounding high-rises took Section 8 residents. While I'm sure they raised property crime slightly in the area, I think most people preferred that state of affairs to having the Cabrini-Green projects next door.

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Re:Airbnb And The Unstoppable Rise Of The Share Economy by temphn on Thursday January 24, 2013 @04:18AM (#5108544)

  they raised property crime slightly

The article shows that they increased the murder rate substantially. Moreover, most people would prefer to have 10 murderers focusing their attentions on each other than having them next door. A spatially localized Cabrini Green which you can avoid is far superior to one that you cannot, especially when it is your tax dollars that are being used against your will to create this dangerous situation. By contrast, AirBnB is not forcing you to pay the rent for the hipsters boarded in your neighbor's domicile.

  nobody thinks that Section 8 doesn't increase crime in 
  nicer neighborhoods

OK. So we agree that official United States government policy increased crime in nicer neighborhoods and that nobody thinks differently. And we probably agree that murders are considerably more serious than any of the hypothetical harms caused by apartment rentals, especially given the statistical evidence for a direct causal effect of government policy presented in the article.

So: given that it is still official US government policy to increase the murder rate in middle class neighborhoods (Section 8's budget was raised to $19B in 2011), exactly why should anyone believe other government housing regulations would promote the common welfare?

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Re:Airbnb And The Unstoppable Rise Of The Share Economy by rayiner on Thursday January 24, 2013 @09:57AM (#5109795)

The article doesn't show shit. It completely ignores the fact that murders in large cities hit record lows right before the recession, even though such cities are the heaviest users of Section 8.

As for mid-size cities? Look at the cities on that list and see what happened to their Hispanic immigrant profile over the last two decades. The article makes no attempt to factor out that phenomenon.

Section 8 is a solution to a problem that has no good solution. Segregation is worse--it destroys economic development in the ghettos and its not like those people can't go up to the nice neighborhoods. Moreover, it's not like people who live in Chicago want to take the suburb route and move to the suburbs, separated by distance so the poor minorities can't reach them.

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