Airbnb Doesn't Boost All Neighborhoods Equally

Guest: Mohammad Rahman, PhD, Associate Professor of Management at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University The world’s largest hotel isn’t really a hotel at all: it’s a worldwide network of regular people who rent out their spare rooms on Airbnb.com. The house-sharing site claims that it’s an economic boost to neighborhoods outside a city’s typical tourist zone, since Airbnb rentals are often in neighborhoods that don’t have hotels. But new analysis by management professor Mohammad S. Rahman at Purdue University finds that only restaurants and shops in predominantly white neighborhoods get a boost from Airbnb. Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, do not.