"The New York state attorney general has issued the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between home-rental site Airbnb and regulators in its largest market, releasing a report in which he argues Airbnb has created a new kind of New York City real estate mogul – the commercial host. Some of the company’s top hosts make millions each year booking between dozens and hundreds of individual apartment units, taking them off the market for regular New Yorkers, the attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, argued in a report released on Thursday. The report “raises serious concerns about the proliferation of illegal hotels”, Schneiderman said in a statement. “We must ensure that, as online marketplaces revolutionise the way we live, laws designed to promote safety and quality-of-life are not forsaken under the pretext of innovation.” The attorney general’s report lays out an argument for why some of the site’s top hosts are gentrifying New York neighbourhoods, running illegal hotels, potentially avoiding millions in taxes and disturbing residential buildings. The attorney general also announced a joint enforcement committee, to find and shut down illegal hotels in the five boroughs. Schneiderman’s office analysed data subpoenaed from Airbnb in May, containing the anonymised transactions of 16,000 city hosts from 2010 through the first five months of 2014. Schneiderman’s office also obtained personal information about 100-plus hosts. The office found that the top host rented 272 unique units for revenue of more than $6.8m. Over those four years, the top 12 hosts made more than $24m combined. Around 40% of revenue, $187m, came from the Lower East Side and Chinatown, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, and the Greenwich Village-SoHo areas. Many of those neighbourhoods had increasing numbers of units dedicated exclusively to short-term rentals. In Brooklyn, the trendy Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighbourhoods scooped up 10% of citywide revenue, generating $39m for hosts. Schneiderman’s report says as much as 72% of the site’s private listings, those rented while an occupant is gone, could be illegal, skirting as much as $33m in required hotel taxes. This is just the latest public relations move against Airbnb by Schneiderman. The two parties hashed out an agreement on the subpoena in a Manhattan trial-level court in May, but a fight for the hearts and minds of New Yorkers appears far from over. Over the summer, Airbnb plastered subways stations with ads. “New Yorkers agree: Airbnb is great for New York City,” the ads read. That assertion, however, appears far from universal. The ads were widely vandalised (as many in the city are), and a number of community groups have mounted an opposition to the company, saying that buildings are less safe and affordable when hordes of out-of-towners traipse through. Airbnb, however, maintains it’s just a proponent of the sharing economy that helps New Yorkers afford the city, providing an option to rent apartments while they’re not in use. The service has grown fantastically over the past four years – it now does tenfold the business it did in 2010, according to Schneiderman’s report. Hosts and Airbnb together are expected to rake in $282m this year. “We need to move forward,” spokesman Nick Papas said in an email to the Guardian. “We should not deny thousands of New Yorkers the chance to share their homes, pay their bills and stay in the city they love. We need to work together on some sensible rules that stop bad actors and protect regular people who simply want to share the home in which they live.” Before handing data over to Schneiderman’s office, the company removed some 2,000 New York City listings from its site, calling them “bad actors”. Schneiderman’s analysis of Airbnb’s data didn’t take into account these removed listings, Airbnb said. While Airbnb dukes out its right to rent in New York, it’s scoring high-profile victories elsewhere: the San Francisco board of supervisors recently legalised short-term rentals." - ((°}

Di tutti i cartelli di Airbnb che ho visto a new york, e sono tanti, non ne ricordo uno vandalizzato. - Sig. N

SF e' meno drastica http://www.sfgate.com/news... - Meandthebay

E vi dico di più: i tassisti newyorkesi (yellow cab, non green o limo) con cui ho chiacchierato sono stracontenti dell'arrivo di UBER dato che gli porta un sacco di lavoro, molto più di quanto gli toglie. Uno mi raccontava che un tassista iscritto fa tra 5 e 7 mila dollari al mese solo tramite Uber, mentre chi è con Hello Taxi ne fa un migliaio. (mi raccontava anche che lui con una Honda di ultima generazione brucia 1300 dollari di benzina al mese, mentre chi ha una Crown Victoria arriva a spenderne da 3 a 5 volte tanto) - Sig. N

M&tB, infatti, la disparità di... 'trattamento' è interessante // N, vaglielo a spiegare ai tassisti italiani. però mi sono sempre chiesta come possa essere legale, con le leggi italiane, affitare casa/stanza con airbnb - ((°}