Lynn Harpell knows all about trends. Since opening her vintage clothing shop Exile in Kensington Market in 1976, she has seen the neighbourhood shift with the times like the hemlines on her retro dresses — from immigrant market to countercultural headquarters, from in-the-know student hang-out to a global food destination.
So she wasn’t exactly surprised to hear that Airbnb declared Kensington Market one of the 10 trendiest neighbourhoods in Canada for bookings this summer — sixth on the list, part of a group where year-over-year bookings are up nearly 180 per cent, at an average daily rate of $290 a night. More like bemused.
“I mean, everything’s cool until it’s not anymore,” said Harpell. “Until all the cool people are gone and it’s just a bunch of people that are posing as cool.”
That’s the position Kensington finds itself in. The same independent, mom-and-pop character Airbnb promotes to guests looking for a “local experience” is what many residents worry could be eroded as more visitors arrive. So what happens to a place once the world decides it’s a destination?
The Star spoke to three locals with different relationships to the neighbourhood — a small business owner, an Airbnb host and a housing advocate — about what’s at stake. Airbnb did not respond to the Star’s request for comment before publication.
The shopkeeper
For Harpell, tourism itself isn’t the problem.
“I’m all for people experiencing the neighbourhood like a local,” she said, “as long as the locals aren’t pushed out and they don’t Disney-fy Kensington.”
Once that balance tips, she said, the independent shops that gave the market its character can’t survive.
“The person selling cilantro can’t compete with a guy with a liquor license.”
Even her own business depends on that balance holding. Tourists buy her vintage jackets, she said, but they rarely shop at the fruit stalls and cheese shops next door — the businesses that keep the market a place people actually live, not just visit. Losing them would cost the whole market its character, her shop included.
“As long as people realize we’re not just an Instagram backdrop,” said Harpell. “It really is a real place with real people that really live here.”
The Airbnb host
Su Alexanian, an artist and activist, has lived in Kensington Market for decades, raising her family in a row house facing Bellevue Square. She began renting out rooms in her home through Airbnb more than a decade ago to help pay for her children’s university. A room typically costs less than $150 a night, depending on the date.
“A lot of my guests are people that would have stayed on someone’s couch,” she said.
Still, she found Airbnb’s announcement frustrating.
A recent guest, a man travelling with his daughter, told her at checkout that the house was lovely, but the neighbourhood felt “disadvantaged.” They had taken Ubers everywhere, he explained, because they were afraid of the locals wandering the streets.
”(Airbnb) paints such a delightful picture, but they don’t give the whole story,” said Alexanian. “My first reaction was to write and tell them they’re describing us incorrectly. We are trendy — I know — but we’re a lot of other things as well.”
Alexanian said that’s simply what Kensington is like.
“Everyone is welcome in Kensington Market,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what your background is. You can eat at a restaurant with a hundred-dollar plate, and right across the street you’ve got a bunch of punks playing cards in the park. That’s just normal here. It makes it safe for everybody, because it’s always busy.”
The housing advocate
Dominique Russell, a long-time resident and co-director of community at Kensington Market Community Land Trust — which buys up buildings to try to keep them permanently affordable — said Airbnb celebrating Kensington as a trendy destination is difficult to separate from its effect on neighbourhood housing.
“It’s kind of astonishing to me that Airbnb can get this kind of free publicity through the news,” she said. “It’s a bit ironic to have it declared trendy when they’re actively against the health of our neighbourhood.”
She points to short-term rentals as one reason. By the trust’s estimate, nearly 60 per cent of short-term rentals in Kensington are unlicensed, and 70 per cent of those are multi-listings — including one host with 77 units.
“What Airbnb represents is a kind of commercializing of what was sharing, and a loss of housing and neighbours,” she said.
The trust isn’t opposed to tourism, Russell added — Kensington has always drawn visitors. But she argues that as more housing is converted into short-term rentals, the neighbourhood loses the residents who give it its character.
“I don’t care what Airbnb thinks is cool,” she said. “I worry about what they think is cool, because that has an effect on our housing market.”
