Is it fair to say "a rise in the prevalence of Airbnb in a census tract in one year predicts increases in crime and disorder in the following year."? Probably yea, that just implies a correlation. Is it fair to say "airbnb raises violent crime in cities"? I think you'd need an rct for that one.
The sentence you're concerned with is the headline of the article, but isn't found in the original paper. Here's how they close their abstract:
This result supports the notion that the prevalence of Airbnb listings erodes the natural ability of a neighborhood to prevent crime, but does not support the interpretation that elevated numbers of tourists bring crime with them.
"Supports the notion" is a far more nuanced statement, I'd say.
And again - I'm just responding to the idea that saying "correlation is not causation" can allow one to dismiss any statistical study. The study may have flaws, may overstate its results, could be completely terrible in fact - but the people who did it know about correlation and causation, and refuting them requires going deeper than that. In general, it requires looking at their paper, not the news coverage of it.
It's possible it might mean fewer long-time residents means fewer people knowing the state and characteristics of a neighborhood and thus fewer people to notice patterns and know what's out of place and not, so fewer people to intervene against anti-social behavior and fewer people calling the cops, so it goes down hill. A tourist might not care about antisocial behavior that does not affect them. Mugging, breaking and entering, theft, etc. Whereas locals would have a stake in the health of their neighborhood and intervene.
