Social Media as gentrification predictor

A team of researchers from various London universities believe that Social media could be an untapped data source for government officials when it comes to predicting economic and demographic trends.

After collecting data from nearly 37,000 people and 42,000 venues and examining over 500,000 "check-ins" left by people on FourSquare and Twitter, two very popular social media apps, over a 10-month period, the team was able to determine what venues and what neighborhoods brought together people of heterogeneous background vs. those that attracted more homogenous crowds. At the same time, they deduced which places attracted a mix of strangers and those that brought together large groups of friends all connected together.

The major find of the research was that neighborhoods undergoing gentrification had certain commonalities that preceded the "transition" of the area. These places have much richer social diversity -- marked by an influx of social media users from different walks of life. These data markers were linked to rising housing prices and lower crime rates -- two of the leading signs of gentrification.

Though the team admits that their data pool may be biased (given the demographics of who uses these social media apps), they hope that governments across the globe can embrace these technologies to make smarter policy choices that improve people's lives.

When governments conduct official census polls, it can tell leaders a great deal about what's going on in people's lives. Census data provides a host of detailed information on demographics and broad trends and, hopefully, the government can take this info and make policy to improve people's lives.

However, governments tend to rely on outdated methods for gathering all this information. For decades, the U.S. government, for instance, has relied on census workers to walk the streets of the country and talk to people face-to-face. This could change in 2020, though, when the Census Bureau is aiming to account for the majority of U.S. residents by digital methods.