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Publications
  • 2019
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

Nowcasting Gentrification: Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:13
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Abstract

Data from digital platforms have the potential to improve our understanding of gentrification and enable new measures of how neighborhoods change in close to real time. Combining data on businesses from Yelp with data on gentrification from the Census, Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Streetscore (an algorithm using Google Streetview), we find that gentrifying neighborhoods tend to have growing numbers of local groceries, cafes, restaurants, and bars, with little evidence of crowd-out of other types of businesses. For example, the entry of a new coffee shop into a zip code in a given year is associated with a 0.5 percent increase in housing prices. Moreover, Yelp measures of local business activity provide leading indicators for housing price changes and help to forecast which neighborhoods are gentrifying.

Keywords

Geographic Location; Local Range; Transition; Analytics and Data Science; Measurement and Metrics; Forecasting and Prediction

Citation

Glaeser, Edward L., Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Nowcasting Gentrification: Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-077, February 2018.
  • SSRN
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About The Author

Michael Luca

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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More from the Authors
  • Shanty Real Estate: Teaching Note Supplement By: Michael Luca
  • Black Ownership Matters: Does Revealing Race Increase Demand for Minority-Owned Businesses? By: Abhay Aneja, Michael Luca and Oren Reshef
  • Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID Vaccines By: Susan Athey, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca and Nils Wernerfelt
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