How do Airbnb and short-term rentals affect housing and communities? Locating the origins and success of Airbnb in the conditions wrought by the 2008 financial crisis, the authors bring together a diverse body of literature and construct case studies of cities in US, Australia and Germany.

Lily M. Hoffman, Professor Emerita at CCNY and the CUNY Graduate Center, received her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University. Her research interests lie in the social/spatial impact of urban restructuring, including housing, tourism, urban governance and planning policy in comparative perspective. Among other publications, she is author of The Politics of Knowledge: Activist Movements in Medicine and Planning; co-editor of Cities and Visitors: Regulating People, Markets and City Space, with Susan S. Fainstein and Dennis R. Judd; and co-editor of Pandemics and Emerging Infectious Diseases: The Sociological Agenda with Robert Dingwall and Karen Staniland.

Barbara Schmitter Heisler is Professor Emerita, Gettysburg College. She received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago and was the recipient of a German Marshall Fund Fellowship and the Berlin Prize. Her research, which has focused on international migration, racial and ethnic relations and housing, has been published in numerous journals and book chapters. Professor Heisler is co-editor of a special issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and the author of two books, From German Prisoner of War to American Citizen and An Artist as Soldier.

Preface Introduction Part One: The American Experience 1. The Sharing Economy, Airbnb and the Financialization of Housing 2. Cities, Data and Data Wars 3. The Airbnb Effect: Challenges to Housing and Localities Part Two: Moving Beyond the US 4. Australia, Airbnb's Most Penetrated Market 5. Germany, One of Airbnb's Least Penetrated Markets Conclusion: Repositioning Short-Term Rentals in the Housing Market Index