Edward Ludwig Glaeser

Michael Luca

Hyunjin Kim

We demonstrate that data from digital platforms such as Yelp have the potential to improve our understanding of gentrification, both by providing data in close to real time (i.e. nowcasting and forecasting) and by providing additional context about how the local economy is changing. Combining Yelp and Census data, we find that gentrification, as measured by changes in the educational, age, and racial composition within a ZIP code, is strongly associated with increases in the numbers of grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, and bars, with little evidence of crowd-out of other categories of businesses. We also find that changes in the local business landscape is a leading indicator of housing price changes, and that the entry of Starbucks (and coffee shops more generally) into a neighborhood predicts gentrification. Each additional Starbucks that enters a zip code is associated with a 0.5% increase in housing prices.

Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change

Measuring Gentrification

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.

Nowcasting Gentrification

Published on the occasion of the 58th Venice Biennale and curated by Hyunjin Kim, History Has Failed Us, but No Matter explores the history of modernization in East Asia through the lens of gender and the agency of tradition. Like the namesake exhibition hosted at the Korean Pavilion, the publication looks at the works of the three Korean artists siren eun young jung, Jane Jin Kaisen, and Hwayeon Nam as a challenge to dig into, rethink, and question the canon of the heterosexual male and the modality in which East Asian modernization has been interpreted, while at th00Exhibition: Korean pavilion, Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (11.05.-24.11.2019).

Hyunjin Kim

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