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Urban economists have put forward the idea that cities that are culturally interesting tend to attract “the creative class” and, as a result, end up being economically successful. Yet it is still unclear how economic and cultural dynamics mutually influence each other.

For the first time, we operationalize a neighborhood's cultural capital in terms of the cultural interests that pictures geo-referenced in the neighborhood tend to express. This is made possible by the mining of what users of the photo-sharing site of Flickr have posted in the cities of London and New York over 5 years.

We find that the combination of cultural capital and economic capital is indeed indicative of neighborhood growth in terms of house prices and improvements of socio-economic conditions. Culture pays, but only up to a point as it comes with one of the most vexing urban challenges: that of gentrification.

Interactive maps of the two cities are available here, while publications and datasets are available below.

Publications

Team

Daniele Quercia
Nokia Bell Labs
Luca Maria Aiello
Nokia Bell Labs
Desislava Hristova
University of Cambridge
Tobias Kauer
Nokia Bell Labs