The Mast-Head: Unintended Consequences

It’s different now. Everybody says so. High season in East Hampton is nothing like it was even five years ago. There are too many people, too many cars on the roads, too few places to park, too many lines, and not enough peace and quiet.

I blame Airbnb.

Time was that the barrier was relatively high to spending any part of the summer in the Hamptons: You had to own property, be related to someone who did, or at least be able to afford a monthly rental, which came at a considerable price.

Now anyone who can scrape together $500 can enjoy a piece of this place for a weekend, and all those extra people add up.

Others have said that even if there are not all that many extra visitors around, the short-visit folks have to pack more into each day to get their money’s worth. This means they drive around more, eat out every meal, and just do more. It’s great if your restaurant or whatever caters to the tourist trade, but it’s not so hot if all you want to do is live here in peace.

If this sounds like an elitist view, so be it. This narrow end of an island can only support so many people, and the new online sharing economy is blowing it up, skewing the math, as it were, and elected officials, emergency services, and our limited infrastructure can’t cope.

“It’s only June,” you hear people say. “What are July and August going to be like?”

Meanwhile, a modest attempt to bring a measure of control in the form of a rental-property registry was answered by mewling protests. People either were not eager to see the party end or feared that they might have to start reporting their earnings on their tax returns.

Airbnb, Homeaway, and Vacation Rental by Owner are extraordinary new-economy powerhouses. Airbnb alone is valued at about $20 billion. Its business model is connecting the owners of houses and apartments around the world with customers looking for short-term stays, but it is also selling little pieces of you and me and the place so many of us love and have worked so hard to protect.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a young trio on bikes who stopped to pick a spray of protected lady slipper flowers from the roadside. Thinking about their dismissive response when we confronted them, I have to think, more than merely clueless, they were short-timers who gave less than a hoot about this wonderful place and were never coming back again anyway.

Disruptive is a word generally tossed about to describe the effect of the new online juggernauts. For sure, they are disruptive, but they also have real and already obvious consequences. Yeah, I blame Airbnb and its $20 billion, but I also blame us for putting up with it.