Well this totally sucks..

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
No, I think this is great. People not only of means should be able to live actually in a city, and not in the far-flung ghettos outlying. Get a hotel, touristes.
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i believe i remember you renting an apartment in the les, tourista...
 
As one commenter (to the article) mentioned "There isnt a Williamsburg or Red Hook." (probably French), my locale may have enough street cred for a house swap. Anyone have any experience with this?
 
originally posted by Thor:
Well, for example: if the goal is increasing a supply of affordable housing, and the housing stock in question is apartments aimed at at wealthy tourists, does insisting on long-term rentals accomplish this goal? Are Parisians searching for affordable housing really in the market for these places? Certainly not. So to achieve the stated goal, something else would have to happen. Forced subdivision? Rent control? Eminent domain? Even in France, forcing owners to disgorge property in order to repurpose it for affordable housing seems unlikely.
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It wouldn't have to be the same apartments to produce the desired policy effect. Housing markets are segmented, but they're not totally sealed off from one another - a classic filtering argument would work here. As properties trade hands based on multiples of income, reducing demand by high-paying tourists would both lower housing prices/rents and free up apartments in the high status areas where they are concentrated.

That might facilitate demand by renters and buyers displaced into adjacent neighborhoods by the high prices charged to visitors, in turn freeing up apartments... the affordable housing would end up being produced in neighborhoods that had been occupied by households two or three rungs down the status/income ladder think Bushwick in reverse.
 
i believe i remember you renting an apartment in the les, tourista...
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Scott Reiner, FTW.

It wouldn't have to be the same apartments to produce the desired policy effect. Housing markets are segmented, but they're not totally sealed off from one another - a classic filtering argument would work here. As properties trade hands based on multiples of income, reducing demand by high-paying tourists would both lower housing prices/rents and free up apartments in the high status areas where they are concentrated.

That might facilitate demand by renters and buyers displaced into adjacent neighborhoods by the high prices charged to visitors, in turn freeing up apartments... the affordable housing would end up being produced in neighborhoods that had been occupied by households two or three rungs down the status/income ladder think Bushwick in reverse.
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It's an interesting notion, but I just don't see it. Paris remains World Tourist Destination #1, no? And isn't it littered with expats (e.g. see above)? What you're positing requires it to be neither of those things. To be...I dunno, Metz. The 7th isn't going to become the 15th, and the 15th isn't going to become an exurb in turn, by removing a few hundred renters each month (which is more or less what we're talking about). The Marais isn't going to become undesirable. SGdP's most expensive addresses aren't going to be given back to the students for a few euros and a pack of Galouises.

Yes, if Paris decided it was going to become incredibly hostile to any tourism longer than about a week, what you suggest could work. (I still don't think it would, because the desirable addresses don't become any less desirable the moment they lack 11-month Americans, Japanese, Germans, etc. in favor of 12-month Americans, Japanese, Germans, etc., but that's a separate argument.) But for Paris to become Bolinas (is that the correct analogue?) would be economic suicide. Toulouse could get away with it, maybe, because it doesn't rely so much on the tourist economy. Paris can't, at least in my opinion. Hell, Strasbourg couldn't; Paris hasn't a hope.

I'm not saying that Paris (and NYC, and very much the Bay Area, and even my homard-away-from-home corner of New England) couldn't use more affordable urban housing. A vibrant multi-economic urban community is essential to long-term survival, especially as our world becomes more urban, and I think policy might have to reflect and even encourage this. But this policy is not at all the path to that goal. And there's another catch to the policy, as well: were Parisian housing not so punishingly expensive (which is the problem that needs fixing, no?), there is every likelihood that we would own some. How does that help make Parisian housing more affordable for anyone? If anything, it exacerbates the problem. Now, Paris could also prohibit non-citizen ownership and non-citizen short-term rental in the way that Provence tried to do (and the workarounds show how well that's going to succeed), but that's a very severe escalation of anti-tourist policy, and I just don't see it as likely. France can enact laws as silly as the rest of us, but that's a level of silliness that I'd wager is beyond even them.

Shorter Thor: Paris is where people want to be. Certain neighborhoods in Paris are where Parisians and temporary/semi-permanent Parisians want to be. Putting a boot into tourists' rears isn't going to change that.

I have to say that, after walking around in 102 heat for a few hours, I've gained some clarity on this issue. Or delirium. One of the two, maybe both. Anyway, the more I think about this, the more I think that this isn't a correct story. The French government can do laughably stupid things (as can all governments), but this doesn't quite pass the smell test. I'm starting to doubt that this is legit as presented.
 
Anyone have any experience with this?
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Jason, I've had enormous interest in same (proximity to Harvard/MIT/BU/BC, etc., a quiet/many-bedroomed location) from some exploratory inquiries, and while I haven't done it yet, it would seem to be something worth exploring. When it works, it can fund a level of ex-patriotism (is that a word?) that's hard to contemplate otherwise. If you take the plunge, let me know. I'm strongly considering it.
 
I didn't mean to imply that such an approach was defensible as affordable housing policy, just that it follows a certain logic within housing economics. The French authorities are correct about one thing - making apartments and hotels substitutable goods makes apartments more expensive. That they misunderstand that Parisian apartments are also substitutable with apartments in Berlin, New York, Barcelona... wherever footloose bohos have choices to purchase - that seems pretty clear.

As for anti-tourist policy, what's wrong with a little fuck-you to the visitor class if demand is so strong? If I was the Mayor of Paris in the middle of a Eurozone meltdown and an impending national austerity campaign, I'd have no problem taxing the hell out of foreign housing purchases. Nothing better than never-ending real estate demand to fund social services or affordable housing (an approach used to good effect in NYC, and before that Boston). The best part about visitors - they can't vote.
 
I didn't mean to imply that such an approach was defensible as affordable housing policy, just that it follows a certain logic within housing economics. The French authorities are correct about one thing - making apartments and hotels substitutable goods makes apartments more expensive.
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But "more expensive" doesn't mean that the outcome of the alternative is affordable housing. I still don't see how the zillions of Eiffel Tower-view apartments become "affordable" even if Paris boots 100% of the tourists. I don't see how the Marais becomes the DMZ. A 10%, even 20%, reduction in yearly rent is still out of the reach of most for really desirable locations; all you're doing is moving someone from a 60% (desirability) neighborhood to an 80% neighborhood. That's not affordable housing, that's gentrification. That helps non-wealthy Parisians how?

I don't question the theory ("assume a spherical cow..."), I question it in practice. Paris does not, as you note, become Berlin -- or Metz -- by eliminating short-term tourist rentals. And without that reduction in tourist dollars, they can't achieve what they're claiming to wish to achieve by these means. They need -- in fact, rely on -- these very tourists and expats.

As for anti-tourist policy, what's wrong with a little fuck-you to the visitor class if demand is so strong?
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Demand is extremely liquid. As I said, anti-tourist policy won't affect the five-day crowd. But they spend money on three things: hotel, restaurant, sites. Apartment renters spend money on restaurants, sites, stores of all genres, markets, public transportation, and other recipients of economic interest. The more that Paris shifts from an economy of the latter to the economy of the former, the more Venetian it becomes. That's not an enticing fate. Or they could fuck the tourists, and then they won't have them. There may have been a time when Paris could survive that. That time is not now, I think. There are cities that could survive that, but I don't think Paris is one of them.

Auckland encourages you to visit and then leave. Queenstown encourages you to stay for a very long while. Auckland has a (sort of) vibrant economic community that has nothing to do with tourists. Queenstown gets far, far more tourist dollars, both in toto and in percentage, and doesn't exist in its current form without them. Who's better off? That's debatable, but were Queenstown to decide that it wanted to be Auckland, it would have fatal problems.

Paris isn't quite in Queenstown's situation, but it's not in Auckland's either. It can't fuck the tourists. I mean, two days' Seine-front walking will demonstrate that.

If I was the Mayor of Paris in the middle of a Eurozone meltdown and an impending national austerity campaign, I'd have no problem taxing the hell out of foreign housing purchases.
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How much money would that raise. Really? I suspect almost none, as a percentage of total revenue (keeping in mind the reduction in overall revenue). This is a transparent nativist ploy, not a fiscal policy.

...and before that Boston). The best part about visitors - they can't vote.
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Boston and its suburbs/exurbs are in devastating fiscal decline, with fatally hobbled schools and infrastructure. And I grew up in one of those "the people who own these properties can't vote" locales, in northern Minnesota. You know what? "Those people" no longer go there. The entire region is failing on a massive and unrecoverable scale. So you'll pardon me if I don't consider either a wise model for Paris to follow.
 
As with most such moves of this type, I suspect that the hand of the government's interest in affordable housing is somewhat less involved than the hand of the hoteliers' lobby.
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That was my first thought too. If short term apartment rentals to tourists are really so common, enforcement would be a boon for the Paris hotel industry.
 
Is there a US or EU city/region not in a devastating fiscal decline?
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Not many, but Massachusetts has the special gift of Prop. 2.5, limiting what can be done about it.
 
Oh, I pay all of their exorbitant fees and have the apposite paperwork. Now, if I were a schoolteacher, say, I'd be beholden to their choice of locale. I could find myself in St. Affrique (I love that name) in Auvergne. Surface of the moon.
 
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