Since the launch of Airbnb, the city of Amsterdam has practically changed its position vis-à-vis the home-sharing platform and the so-called sharing economy. This shocking visualization makes it very clear why.
The Silicon Valley unicorn was welcomed with open arms when it launched its Dutch language site in March 2012. The municipality welcomed the platform as an exciting opportunity and initially allowed anyone to rent its rooms and apartments for short periods.
But over the past year, that position has completely reversed – and thanks to this visualization by a Dutch data viewer and animator Kor Dwarshuisit is not difficult to understand why.
Using data collected from Inside Airbnb, a non-commercial dataset “that lets you explore how Airbnb is actually used in cities around the world,” Dwarshuis charted the spread of Airbnb listings across Amsterdam. over time.
Even as someone who’s heard all the stories about neighborhoods taken over by wheelie tourists, the viewing is quite shocking. Not only in the number of new ads added, but also in the number of ads added by unique users at one time. Sometimes the map lights up with between 5 and 15 listings added at once by a single name, which surely wasn’t Airbnb’s intended use.
public broadcaster NSA reports that Airbnb listed 25,721 properties in Amsterdam in 2016 and welcomed 1.7 million guests throughout the year. For a city of less than a million people, you can imagine that could become an imposition.
The city of Amsterdam has taken steps to curb the growth of Airbnb in the city, but shows no signs of slowing down in 2017. Rentals through Airbnb grew by 34% in the first quarter.
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