Short-Term Rentals Pivot to Shrinking Cities Facing Housing Glut

While major cities have long regulated short-term rentals to protect scarce housing, a growing number of communities with declining populations face the opposite problem: too many homes and too few people. The article explores how these places might adapt the short-term rental model to attract visitors and fill empty properties, shifting the debate from scarcity to surplus.

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The regulatory crackdown in major cities has been dramatic in scale. New York's Local Law 18, which took effect in September 2023, reduced Airbnb listings for stays under 30 days from roughly 22,000 to fewer than 4,000 within a year. Barcelona has adopted even stricter measures, backed by research attributing nearly 2% average rent increases citywide and about 7% in its most Airbnb-dense neighborhoods to the platform's activity.

The article's central pivot concerns communities experiencing population decline, where the housing problem is inverted: surplus rather than scarcity. These shrinking places face empty properties that could potentially benefit from visitor accommodation. The