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Publications
  • May 2018
  • Article
  • AEA Papers and Proceedings

Nowcasting Gentrification: Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:6
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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, cafés, 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% 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

Forecasting Models; Simulation Methods; Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, And Changes; Geographic Location; Local Range; Transition; Analytics and Data Science; Measurement and Metrics; Economic Growth; Forecasting and Prediction

Citation

Glaeser, Edward L., Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Nowcasting Gentrification: Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change." AEA Papers and Proceedings 108 (May 2018): 77–82.
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About The Author

Michael Luca

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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    Gentrification and Retail Churn: Theory and Evidence

    By: Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Erica Moszkowski
More from the Authors
  • Where Have All the Good Men Gone?: Book Review of 'The Two-Parent Privilege' by Melissa S. Kearney By: Michael Luca
  • Experimenting with Algorithm Resume Screening By: Michael Luca, Jesse M. Shapiro, Adrian Obleton, Evelyn Ramirez and Nathan Sun
  • Gentrification and Retail Churn: Theory and Evidence By: Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Erica Moszkowski
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