From the Promise of Platforms to Urban Discontent:

This presentation examines the trajectory of short-term rental platforms in European cities, tracing their evolution from the promise of digital innovation to drivers of urban discontent and regulatory restrictions. First, it delves into the promise of platforms, initially framed as tools of the “sharing economy”, travel flexibility, and economic opportunity. By enabling the conversion of residential units into rent-generating accommodations for visitors, short-term rentals have increased pressures on already strained housing markets, leading to a variety of policy responses from European urban governments. By analysing and explaining this variety of responses, the presentation argues that short-term rentals crystallise wider possible urban futures, shaped by platform capitalism and competing models of socio-economic growth and housing.

Francesca Artioli

École d’Urbanisme de Paris / Université Paris Est-Créteil

Francesca Artioli is Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Policies at the École d’Urbanisme de Paris (Université Paris Est-Créteil) and researcher at the Lab’Urba. Her research examines housing assetisation and urban rentierisation, with a focus on politics, collective action, and the political economy of property in European cities. She is the author of Housing under Platform Capitalism. The Contentious Regulation of Short-term Rentals in European Cities (with Thomas Aguilera and Claire Colomb, University of California Press, 2025).