Betsey Stevenson, Columnist

Banning Airbnb Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis

Allowing residents to rent out their homes can help them recoup some of their investment and make city living more affordable.

July 8, 2024 at 11:30 AM UTC

By Betsey Stevenson

Betsey Stevenson is a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. She was on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and was chief economist at the US Department of Labor.

Don’t look for these apartments on Airbnb.
Photographer: Manaure Quintero/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

When it comes to housing, almost all governments say they want to make it more affordable — and then they embrace policies that do the opposite. The latest illustration of this unfortunate trend, a ban on short-term rentals, came to Barcelona just last month, and similar policies are being tried in New York and elsewhere.

The theory is that services such as Airbnb in effect take units off the market, driving up rental costs for city residents. By effectively banning Airbnb, cities are betting that they can make more affordable housing more available.