"The measure is believed to have eliminated as many as 15,000 — or about 70% — of Airbnb's listings in New York City, Wired reported using data from housing advocacy group Inside Airbnb."
I hope this means lower rent for New Yorkers, 15,000 apartments possibly going back to the rental market seems like something positive.
New York is never going to be affordable though. The whole concept of "low rent" in New York is an inherently stupid goal.
The reason rents are high in New York is primarily because it's tourist hotspot, but because people are serving a market. If you want rents to be cheaper in NYC then the fix here is really to make the city less desirable to tourists so people don't want to stay for the week. But then is it even New York?
In an ideal world New York could have low rents, be a tourist hot spot and be a place people can live and raise kids. In reality that's never going to happen, and politicians trying to "fix" the problems with New York is just a waste of resources and is going to come at the cost of people who invested in property in NYC to serve the actual demands of the city (yeah, I know f** landlords, etc).
The solution here, if anything, is transportation and remote working. Ideally people should be able to easily and affordably commute into cities like New York when needed, but they shouldn't feel they have to live there. But even this is probably too utopian. Not everyone is a software engineer with the luxury of remote working after all.
I hope this means lower rent for New Yorkers, 15,000 apartments possibly going back to the rental market seems like something positive.