Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

East Flatbush is a neighborhood rich with history, culture and architectural charm and it is cherished by our tight-knit community. It was only a matter of time before everyone else figured that out. We are in a period of dramatic change as developers have set their sights on our area, like they have in dozens of neighborhoods across New York, and Black and Caribbean families are being displaced. Seniors are especially being targeted by aggressive solicitors who are trying to

(photo: John McCarten)

For more than 30 years, a variety of federal laws have protected the personal data of Americans online at a time of unprecedented technological development. These laws have helped foster the growth of many iconic American companies -- Amazon, Ebay, Google, Twitter, and Airbnb, just to name a few -- and create a thriving tech economy that employs hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, and many more from coast to coast.

And yet, despite this extraordinary success, a bill pushed in the New York City Council by the hotel industry

(photo: Sofie Hecht / Gotham Gazette)

Teaching children to share is difficult. Teaching Airbnb to share is impossible. Airbnb’s version of the “sharing economy” means more profits for the company and less affordable housing for the rest of us. 

Airbnb repeatedly allows and provides cover for commercial operators to break the law, turn our homes into hotels, and parachute into our communities to make a profit, pilfering

(photo: Andrew Russeth via Flickr)

If you’ve lived in New York City anytime in the last half-century, one thing is as certain as the sun will rise: the rent is just too damn high.

Now, in recent weeks, defenders of the hotel industry would have you believe that this is some new phenomena to be entirely blamed on hardworking home-sharers. How dare they!

I don’t buy it, and neither should you. This is all just part of the hotel industry lobby’s smear

City Council Member Robert Cornegy (photo: William Alatriste)

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, here comes Michael McKee with a screed against middle class home sharers like me that would -- or at least should -- make the hotel industry blush.  From one New Yorker to another - thanks but no thanks. We don’t need a white “savior” to tell people of color that they know how to best address gentrification in their communities.

I am a third generation Bedford-Stuyvesant resident, mother of three, and a proud constituent of City Council

Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen (photo: @DMAliciaGlen)

City governments across the world are trying to adjust to and standardize their approaches to companies in the so-called sharing economy. With rapidly advancing technology, major financial investment, creative entrepreneurship, and little regard for the status quo, sharing economy companies -- such as Uber and Airbnb -- often catch government regulators unprepared and disrupt entrenched interests, leading to conflict. Government leaders are forced into difficult decisions, needing to

photo: Sofie Hecht/Gotham Gazette

If you are to tell a lie, make it a big one and repeat it often, is a mantra of many an absolutist regime. Alas, that applies all too often to many businesses. Few epitomize that dictum better than the illegal hotel rental platform Airbnb.

That certainly was the conclusion of a recent, well-researched editorial in the San Francisco Public Press, an independent non-profit focused on

photo: Sofie Hecht for Gotham Gazette

As Governor Andrew Cuomo weighs whether to sign it, a high-stakes fight continues over legislation to regulate Airbnb, the popular home-sharing service. Before and since the state Legislature passed the bill this Spring, the related lobbying battle has touched on various socioeconomic factors including tech entrepreneurship, the sharing economy, affordable housing, organized labor, and more.

Airbnb is now entering into the fray ...

photo: Brandon Muir

New York should never have reached the point where Ashton Kutcher cares more about the economic future and personal freedom of New Yorkers than the state Legislature does.

Yet, that’s exactly where we find ourselves as the actor is one of a number of tech investors who sent a letter urging Governor Cuomo to veto a bill that would crush temporary home-sharing service Airbnb.

Lawmakers in Albany and New York City began an assault on Airbnb with a 2010 bill that placed arbitrary time limits on short-term