Airbnb in the real estate financial chain - Housing and policies in Southern European post-crisis territories

Platform economies are a capillary presence in today’s economic system. Through digital transmission and physical expansion, they represent a sprawling regeneration of capitalistic structures. Airbnb, as one of the primary peer-to-peer rental platform, also captures the most profitable assets that drive the global economy – the real estate market. Considering the meaning behind the term infrastructure, with regards to the structural analysis of the urban economy, this research proposes a reflection both on the interpretation of Airbnb as a structural and infrastructural component of today's cities and as a fundamental link in the real estate financial chain. The research seeks to understand the development of Airbnb, in the context of Southern European cities, as an infrastructural development that finds its roots in the austerity urbanism derived from the 2008 financial crisis. The comparative analysis of Airbnb data correlated with local policies of liberalisation of real estate and the rental market, allow for a broader view on the development of Airbnb in relation to the global trend of financialisation of housing, thereby retracing the political consequence of platform urbanisation. What emerges is a complex system of different kinds of infrastructures that merge and work together at different scales. The research aims to propose a zoomed-out and trans-scalar approach to platform economies, rather than a place-based analysis, and thus focus on the role of Airbnb as an economic, political and digital infrastructure to inscribe it in a politico–economic perspective to better understand its structure and performances as a global trend.