Local Law 18 was introduced and passed as a short-term rental registration measure — a way, its supporters said, of bringing an unregulated market into compliance with existing housing law. In practice, the law imposed a uniform verification regime that did not meaningfully distinguish an owner-occupied one- or two-family home from a commercial operator running dozens of units.

The enforcement pattern that followed tells its own story. The borough-level rates below are drawn from the city's own registration data since the law took effect.

The higher the share of owner-occupied one- and two-family homes in a borough, the higher the enforcement rate against homeowners in that borough. Whatever Local Law 18 was intended to do, this is what it did.