DragxitoHow Airbnb accidentally screwed the US housing market and made $100 billion
US policymakers screwed themselves with crappy urban planning, leading to insufficient housing supply and bad transit options. Blaming AirBnB for high housing prices is like setting up a chain of dominos, and criticizing a guy who comes by and knocks it over. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else, or the wind.
This is happening worldwide. It has very little to do with urban planning and more with lax homeownership restrictions that allows the wealthy and corporations to scoop up housing supply for profit.
“The wealthy and corporations” have choices of how to invest their money. If housing supply is sufficiently elastic to meet demand, they’ll find somewhere else other than housing to put their money. Ain’t nobody trying to corner the Chinese real estate market in 2024, for instance.
There are a few places where land shortages genuinely constrain housing supply, like Singapore and Hong Kong. But the US has tons of land; things are simply not well optimized.
That, plus high interest rates, which is due to fiscal/monetary mismanagement.
Singapore actually has housing pretty much nailed down. If Singapore had US-style housing policies 95% of Singaporeans would live in Malaysia and commute because only bank execs etc. could afford living in the city.
…also Singapore would have zero green space left. It’d all be single family homes interspersed by parking lots. You can’t spit out a chewing gum over there without hitting a public park.
Uranium3006You can't chew gum in Singapore at all, maybe this is why
There’s exceptions for therapeutic uses (dental, nicotine gum) and you can also import small amounts for personal use. Chewing is perfectly legal, improper disposal isn’t.