The presence of more Airbnbs in a neighborhood may be linked to more crime—but not in the way you might think.Researchers from Northeastern University reviewed data in Boston from 2011 to 2018, a period of both sustained growth in Airbnb listings and growing concerns about crime. They found that certain violent crimes—fights, robberies, reports of someone wielding a knife—tended to increase in a neighborhood a year or more after the number of Airbnbs increased—a sign, the researchers said, of a fraying social order.“You’re essentially eroding a neighborhood’s natural capacity to manage crime,” says Dan O’Brien, …
