Illegal short-term rentals, regulatory enforcement and informal practices in the age of digital platforms

Abstract

This article analyses the challenges of controlling short-term rentals (STR) in an era of intermediation by digital platforms, focusing on the process of regulatory enforcement. Drawing on evidence from large European cities, it investigates how public authorities identify and tackle STR deemed illegal, how operators of illegal STR seek to escape detection, and the relationships between city governments and digital platforms in the process of regulatory enforcement. The article shows what digitalisation and ‘platformisation’ do to the possibility of (local) state regulation of housing informality and illegality in the European context. As platforms have been reluctant to release individualised STR listings to local authorities, the latter have had to rely on imperfect, ‘DIY’ methods of data gathering in the physical and digital worlds, in the context of attempts to regulate STR for public interest objectives such as the protection of the long-term residential stock.