Increased social media activity can predict if an area is up-and-coming, according to research done by the University of Cambridge.
Researchers collected data from location-based social networks, like Twitter and Foursquare, and were able to correctly say if a neighbourhood in London was going through the process of gentrification.
The study describes gentrification as the displacement of residents of a deprived area by an influx of a more affluent population. Gentrified areas in South Africa include Maboneng in Johannesburg, Woodstock in Cape Town and Rivertown in Durban.
The research was presented last week at the International World Wide Web Conference in Montr'eal.
The researchers used data from around 37 000 users and 42 000 venues in London to build a network of Foursquare places and overlaid this with Twitter check-in data. This resulted in more than 500 000 check-ins over 10 months.
This data identified areas with 'high social diversity'. Social diversity refers to the ability of a place to bring together either friends or strangers. An area has high social diversity if it brings together a lot of diverse strangers.
The research found signs of gentrification, like rising housing prices and lower crime rates, were the strongest in deprived areas with high social diversity.
"We're looking at the social roles and properties of places," said Desislava Hristova, the study's lead author. "We found that the most socially cohesive and homogenous areas tend to be either very wealthy or very poor, but neighbourhoods with both high social diversity and high deprivation are the ones which are currently undergoing processes of gentrification."
Four indicators were used to measure the social diversity of a place: brokerage, serendipity, entropy and homogeneity.
"Brokerage is the ability of a place to connect people who are otherwise disconnected; serendipity is the extent to which a place can induce chance encounters between its visitors; entropy is the extent to which a place is diverse with respect to visits; and homogeneity is the extent to which the visitors to a place are homogenous in their characteristics," the researchers said in a statement.
Arthur Goldstuck, World Wide Worx MD, found the research fascinating. "The key lies in the concept identified by the researchers that they call 'brokerage' ? the ability of a place to connect people who are otherwise disconnected. If ever there was a tool to increase this kind of brokerage, it is social media."
However, Goldstuck says SA is still in too much flux in terms of population movement for this type of prediction to be a reliable indicator. "Gentrification, here, tends to be driven by commercial development, whether it is the cosy and informal emergence of artists and coffee shops in an area, or the appearance of boutique stores and hip office buildings. This gentrification then tends to attract more affluent residents, rather than the other way round.
"The result is that, when we see a higher presence of social media users in an area [in South Africa], it is likely gentrification has already happened. Of course, we still need to be able to marry social media data to property trends to confirm these theories one way or another," says Goldstuck.
Future uses
The process of gentrification often comes under fire, as people who originally lived in the area are unable to continue doing so due to rising property prices and the influx of affluent workers driving up costs.
The researchers said using social media to predict the process could help local governments make provisions for cheaper housing and "alleviate the negative effects of gentrification while benefitting from economic growth".
The study forecast the gentrification of Hackney in London. The team says other areas on the rise in London are Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Hammersmith and Lambeth.
Goldstuck says on the other hand, "it is a massively powerful tool for both home owners and businesses, if they can predict the areas where property values are likely to increase most rapidly.
"Of course, if everyone has access to the same tools, it becomes a zero sum game in which large numbers of people pursue the same benefits and in effect eradicate the benefits through driving prices up too far too fast, resulting in a potential property price crash. In the real world, however, it is only the more astute investors who take advantage of such early indicators while there is still tremendous upside. When the general public or business arrives, the low-hanging fruit has long since disappeared," says Goldstuck.
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