Airbnb in Urban Regions. What In-Becoming Issues and Opportunities for Public Policies from Airbnb as a Complex System?

The research investigates complex dynamics in territories focusing on material and immaterial aspects of Airbnb, as an in-becoming issue for urban and regional governance. The short-term rental (STR) market is a disruptive social and urban challenge for local institutions because of its wide diffusion. Thus, it is broadly approached by different fields of study because of its effects on urban livability, and it is vastly discussed in over-tourist cities. The research hypothesizes that the materiality and immateriality of dynamics of the Airbnb’s patterns of supply and demand diffusion, the tangled interplay among local and global, private, and public actors involved and the multi-level governance of the short-term rental market are evidence of a complex system that is worth investigating in urban regions. Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic set unique conditions to highlight the Airbnb system’s complexity in transition phases. Therefore, the research proposes to frame the STR market in complexity theories linked to urban domains, in which assumptions on planning and governance rely on complex features of systems and are aimed at discussing the effectiveness of public policy models and tools, here debated in a regional dimension. Methodologically, the single case study proceeds through a data-driven approach, while the research project is built on a theory-driven approach. Ultimately, the research aims to identify the dimension and the specific attributes of a gap between the governance system and the complex features of the Airbnb system, questioning how these features may influence the current urban governance models and tools for short-term rental in Italy and specifically in Tuscany. Limited to the Airbnb material and immaterial dynamics, the research investigates the weaknesses and strengths of the current governance and planning paradigm at different levels in Italy, considering the complexity of the Airbnb system. In in-becoming contexts, the thesis claims that effective rules arise from a systemic approach to the governance of the STR market, because its main actors, such as Airbnb, involve a multiplicity of scales, powers, markets, and life systems, mainly in cities, but also in urban regions because of the morpho-genetic and flow system that constitute regions and attract tourist flows. The conclusions sketch the efficiency of approaching the STR market in Italy from a regional perspective, introducing the assemblages of actors, the ‘roughness’ of territories and the role of the history as (a part of the) drivers of unpredictable patterns of evolution/revolution. Contextually, the impossibility to foresee private plans at the local level doesn’t imply the impossibility for other normative levels to set framing rules for STR platforms and correlated dynamics to protect the weakest actors in the game. In conclusion, the analyses driven by complexity and planning studies open to the chance to further discuss the effects and not only the patterns of the Airbnb system in regions, aimed at supporting urban and regional policy, revising their models and tools under the lens of complexity theories linked to urban domains.