HUMBOLDT CITIES LECTURE

Wednesday, 30 April 2025, 3:00 - 4:30 PM (CEST)

Language: English

Online in Zoom

This Lecture will present the methods, approach and results of a collaborative research project and forthcoming jointly authored with Thomas Aguilera (Sciences Po Rennes, France) and Francesca Artioli (Université Paris Est-Créteil, France). The book compares the politicisation, socio-political conflicts and implementation challenges surrounding the regulation of platform-mediated short-term rental (STR) in 12 European cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome, Vienna). Those city governments have, over the past 10 years, developed multiple forms of regulation whose scope, stringency and fields of action differ from city to city. Combining approaches from the comparative sociology of multilevel urban governance, the sociology of public policies, and the political economy of urban capitalism, the book seeks to explain how and why local governments – faced with the same global phenomenon – have adopted different modes of regulation; what implementation challenges they have faced; and what socio-political effects new STR regulations have had on the political economy of cities.

Based on the construction of an index of regulatory intensity, three ‘worlds of STR regulation’ in Europe were identified. The various stakeholders were mapped which have been advocating, or opposing, regulation, to show how social and economic interests have been reconfigured through new coalitions, conflicts and relationships between public authorities, corporate platforms, professional STR organizations, associations of hosts, the hotel industry, residents’ associations and social movements. Particular attention is paid to the activities of digital platforms as new urban actors and policy entrepreneurs, and to the subsequent judicialisation and transnational rescaling of local regulatory conflicts at the European Union level.