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Can gentrification in London be predicted by social media?

Isabelle Aron
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Isabelle Aron
Features Editor, Time Out London
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Want to know which London neighbourhood you're going to be priced out of next? Forget Rightmove, have a scroll through your Twitter feed instead. According to researchers at Cambridge University, the gentrification of London boroughs can be predicted using data from social media. The researchers collected half a million tweets and Foursquare check-ins in over 40,000 London venues from 2010 and compared the information with census data.

The study showed that areas with diverse groups of people visiting (or what the researchers called 'social diversity') tended to correlate with signs of gentrification – rising house prices and decreasing crime rates. Unsurprisingly, Hackney came out as one of the top areas primed for gentrification based on the 2010 data, along with Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Lambeth.

This alternative tube map shows the average house price at every station

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