My spouse worked for a short-term rental company, an #AirBNB competitor, and wow did I hear an earful from them about the kinds of chaos these places can cause. One factor driving away the individual homeowner posting their extra 'crash space' online vs. the massive conglomerates is how little help the companies offer when something goes wrong (i.e. a renter sets off fireworks in your house while you're renting it out). Giant property owners can eat those kinds of losses and don't have sentimental attachment to their homes.

Excellent reporting here by Eva Ruth Moravec for @TexasObserver: https://www.texasobserver.org/short-term-rentals-airbnb-vrbo-neighborhoods/

#news #Texas #housing #inequality #cities

Platforms like #AirBNB & VRBO cause massive messes across #Texas (and the globe). In #Fredericksburg, 1,900+ short-term units now comprise nearly 25 percent of the housing inventory.

In the cover story from our magazine, Eva Ruth Moravec looks at the big bucks these companies put into #cities, and the efforts to stem the chaos and costs they bring to residential neighborhoods: https://www.texasobserver.org/short-term-rentals-airbnb-vrbo-neighborhoods/

(#Photography by Shelby Tauber)
#news #politics #housing #RealEstate #Dallas #Austin #Plano

Dezeen : SOM plans city to accommodate Muscat's growing population https://www.dezeen.com/2023/09/11/som-sultanhaitham-city-oman/ #SkidmoreOwings&Merrill #Landscapeandurbanism #Architecture #Masterplans #Cities #News #Oman #all

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-09-05/degrowth-the-awakening-of-consciousness-before-an-alternative/

#Resilience: Carlos Taibo, an #economist from Madrid, who defines the demands for #degrowth as “endless precise fields such as #health and %education, the rural world and #tradeunionism, #cities and #migrations.”
#sufficiency #sharing #subsidiarity

#Ukraine reacts to news that #Elon #Musk interfered with Ukraine's self-defense: #Podolyak, reacting on September 8, said by not allowing #Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the #Russian #fleet, Musk "allowed this fleet to fire #Kalibr #missiles at Ukrainian #cities. As a result, #civilians, #children are being killed." [To which #SpaceX is complicit by siding with #Russia and interfering with #Starlink].

https://www.rferl.org/a/elon-musk-ukraine-starlink-satellites-russia-attack/32583636.html

#Cities #Urbanism #Gentrification #Housing: "The root of the problem is that housing is treated as an instrument of profit, one in which the exchange value is prioritized over its use value. The sole solution is to decouple housing from profit and make it a human right. The profit motive keeps all but the flippers, private equity firms, and management companies, the developers and landlords and the obscenely wealthy—whose economic freedom is unimpeded—in constant, virulent antagonism.

The cost of housing forces those below a certain income level into peripheries where we become the gentrifier—with the power to gamble on the price of land and permanently alter a community’s social capital. Yes, this feels terrible. Yes, many of us, especially if we have the freedom of movement, are complicit in this process in our own ways. The choice is either to live with this sin-like guilt or to be a neighbor who knows their neighbors and their rights, who deftly avoids the selfish pitfalls of NIMBYism while keeping an eye on the real fight: a high-stakes political battle for increasingly scarce stability, for what was once in more idealistic times called “the right to the city.” It’s true, many of us neighbors are transplants. But no one wants to be a transplant forever."

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gentrification-rhetorical-weapon-systemic-issue/

The US #Cities With The Highest Density Of #Airbnbs, Visualized
https://digg.com/real-estate/link/us-cities-airbnb-density-listings-per-1000-ranked-visualized-2hImGZNZ1q

Cities: Skylines 2's huge maps blew me away with their sheer size and scale - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cities-skylines-2s-huge-maps-blew-me-away-with-their-sheer-size-and-scale #ParadoxInteractive #Birdview/Isometric #Cities:Skylines2 #Family-friendly #ColossalOrder #XboxSeriesX/S #gamescom2023 #SinglePlayer #Management #ModernDay #Strategy #Gamescom #Preview #Realism #Sandbox #PS5 #PC

#Rents are falling more slowly in U.S. #suburbs than in #cities. Here's why.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rent-increases-national-2023-city-suburb/
#housing #rent #property #USA

Wired: The End of Burning Man Is Also Its Future https://www.wired.com/story/the-end-of-burning-man-is-also-its-future/ #Tech #wired #TechNews #IT #Technology via @morganeogerbc #Culture/CultureNews #climatechange #environment #Culture #climate #flameon #Cities

Wired: The End of Burning Man Is Also Its Future https://www.wired.com/story/the-end-of-burning-man-is-also-its-future/ #Culture/CultureNews #climatechange #environment #Culture #climate #flameon #Cities

Dezeen : Dezeen Debate features Silicon Valley investors' "nostalgic" city concept https://www.dezeen.com/2023/09/07/dezeen-debate-silicon-valley-investors-city-concept/ #Landscapeandurbanism #Architecture #DezeenDebate #California #Cities #all

Wired: This Is the True Scale of New York’s Airbnb Apocalypse https://www.wired.com/story/airbnb-ban-new-york-numbers/ #Tech #wired #TechNews #IT #Technology via @morganeogerbc #NoVacancy #Business #newyork #airbnb #Cities

Wired: This Is the True Scale of New York’s Airbnb Apocalypse https://www.wired.com/story/airbnb-ban-new-york-numbers/ #NoVacancy #Business #newyork #airbnb #Cities

Venice to start charging visitors entry fee next year (Reuters).

"Venice plans to experiment with an admission fee of 5 euros($5.35) for day trippers next year to try to manage the flow of tourists drawn to its historic canals, the city council said on Tuesday.

The fee will be applied on a trial basis on 30 days next year, focusing mainly on spring bank holidays and summer weekends when tourism numbers are at their peak. All visitors over the age of 14 will have to pay it.

The aim was to find "a new balance between the rights of those who live, study or work in Venice and those who visit the city," Venice tourism councillor Simone Venturini said."

#Venice #Venezia #Tourism #Cities #Heritage #Italy #Reuters

@academicchatter
@histodons
@sociology
@culturalheritage

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/venice-start-charging-visitors-entry-fee-next-year-2023-09-05/

What Our Cities Are Missing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD_CMrCpBMc&ab_channel=Andrewism

Let's unravel the defining characteristics of third places, tap into their historical significance and evolution, and explore how we can build and nurture the enduring allure of these social sanctuaries in the modern world.

#Andrewism #cities #missing #social #sanctuaries

Chuckling at The Modern House (high-end snooty online estate agents in the UK) referring to a bungalow as a “single-storey house”. #housing #cities #ForSale

"Parks, trees, green roofs and gardens are what scientists call nature-based solutions to cooling overheated cities. Then there are the technical solutions, solar panels, heat pumps and other ways of cutting fossil fuel use. But even all these combined are not enough to reach the goal of net zero carbon emissions."

#Trees #Environment #Trees #Cities #NetZero

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/sep/01/weatherwatch-parks-gardens-cooling-overheated-cities-nature

I decided to write something more formal and declarative about the power of our cameras, updating past books and such

Go #UrbanDiary2023!

https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/125399-capturing-post-pandemic-city-power-visual-prosecution

#urbanism #cities #photography #pandemicrecovery

New £12m transport hub opens in North Shields town centre

The new Transport Hub and revamped Town Square have been funded through the Transforming #Cities Fund via #Transport North East, the North of Tyne Combined Authority, and North #Tyneside Council.
https://www.nexus.org.uk/news/item/new-ps12m-transport-hub-opens-north-shields-town-centre
#Travel #Buses #Trains #Urbanism #England #UK