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There's no justification for the assumption of a high coffee-to-chicken ratio implying up-and-coming. It's not an unreasonable assumption, but it's definitely a

There's no justification for the assumption of a high coffee-to-chicken ratio implying up-and-coming. It's not an unreasonable assumption, but it's definitely anecdotal.

coldtea 11y ago
Well, as are most things in life, even in science before they are checked out -- they start as observations. The important thing is whether it serves well as a predictor. If we were that interested we could do a scientific analysis, counting coffee shops and chicken places in different urban areas, averaging incomes, checking trends etc. But since it's not that important to most of us, we can just use it as a kind of gauge of where things are going, and judge for ourselves if it has merit or not. Might help someone make a few bucks by buying property in the right area (although the most succesful of tose people already use this and a ton of other metrics, plus insider knowledge of future municipal plans etc).
- bossrat 11y ago
  right, which shows you the value of Big Data. Probably the best measures of real estate value trends are available not to real estate experts, but to Google starting with everybody's inboxes, combined with search, geolocation, etc.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Hmm, yes, this raises an ethical issue too (kinda like "insider trading" but being "insider" for the whole world...)
ubernostrum 11y ago
It's anecdotal, but enough reliable anecdotes do actually turn into "data". My personal marker has always been, when visiting a city for the first time, to pay attention to the roadside advertisements I see on the ride from the airport to the city center. Aside from obvious things like payday/title loan shops, the most reliable indicator I've seen of a neighborhood being badly off is ads for cheap dentures and dental implants.
- riskneural 11y ago
  Agreed... and there is certainly no reason to restrict the analysis to just two types of shops. However, fried chicken and coffee shops make for a really catchy way to introduce the possibilities of geo-analysis. I think maybe the point of the blog was to introduce a type of analysis, rather than to test for up and coming areas?
- 5h 11y ago
  Being london, fried chicken shops attract late night drunken folk wandering around doing what late night drunken folk will do.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Only if they are open late at night. Last time I was in London there wasn't much after a certain time.
- amyjess 11y ago
  For me, check cashing shops are a huge sign I'm in a poor neighborhood. Businesses with signs in Spanish is another, though that's probably specific to Texas and the southwest, since we have a lot of poor Hispanic neighborhoods here. Unfortunately, the Hispanic neighborhoods here are almost universally poor. You go farther north, there probably won't be many Hispanic neighborhoods at all. Put them together, and seeing "Cambiamos Cheques" is a huge red flag.
  - scarecrowbob 11y ago
    Your experience here is a bit anecdotal and might say a bit about what your frame of reference for what it means to be "hispanic". But of course, I don't know you, so feel free to ignore my point :D However, if you walk around the (objectively affluent) La Cantera mall in San Antonio, you'll hear maybe 1/3 of the conversations in Spanish. About 30% of the folks in Texas speak Spanish, so if you're in Texas you're in a hispanic area by definition....what you're describing are areas where people are or aren't willing to pander to folks who aren't bilingual. I don't know if that describes a line between affluence and poverty though. It's possible, though I'm not sure if I believe it.
robmcm 11y ago
Peckham is up and coming though, so it seems to have worked to some extent, albeit a year too late.
- tfgg 11y ago
  That's the thing, you'd need to demonstrate how "coffee shop / chicken shop" density correlates with house prices over time, and whether it's a predictor or a lagging indicator. There might be better correlators - art galleries and cocktail bars are probably other good ones, or most effects might be mostly priced in, or house price increases might be mostly related to investment in repairing shoddy properties, etc. etc. I do think it's a cute way for someone who doesn't know London that well to quickly find likely up-and-coming areas, though and a good starting hypothesis.
  - robmcm 11y ago
    I could be that often coffee shops take over old chicken shops given the size and locations. In London I have observed that gentrification often stems from students living in a cheap area, they make it cool with lots of bars, pubs, events etc. This attracts graduates, who are typically DINKYs, they then add to the available cash in the area and start buying property. Eventually they have kids and the area becomes more mature and expensive. The area next on the tube/train line is typically next to get gentrified by the graduates: Clapham -> Balham/Clapham Junction, East Dulwich -> Peckham/Brockley/Forest Hill, Shorditch -> Dalston/Hakney, whilst new students pick new areas, influenced by cheap rent.
  - willyt 11y ago
    You'd have to filter for 'trendy' ones though. Something like cocktail bars based out of shipping containers on top of abandoned multi-storey car parks or cocktail bars with the same names as businesses at the same address that used to be shoe shops. :-) Something like that...
- branchless 11y ago
  Peckham was "up and coming" when I was there in 2000. Good luck with that. Just for you: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/london-property-market-boosted-by-people-pretending-grim-places-are-great-2013053070398 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/london-property-m... "But how would I live without all the art galleries I never visit, my four-hour daily commute, being groped on the Tube, black snot, getting mugged for my iPhone, and my upstairs neighbour’s regular all-night dubstep sessions?" I lived in Peckham. One night I went next door to tell my neighbour to stop playing dance music full volume at 4am. Another time I phoned the police and they would only send someone round when they had enough backup. "Good times".
88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
This isn't anecdotal - even an anecdote would have a single data point. This is just a completely untested model.
branchless 11y ago
Peckham! But yes I agree, though it's tempting to draw a link...
discardorama 11y ago
Why not try a backtest? Pick a point in time (say, Jan 1, 2011). Pick another data point (say, Jan 1 2015). See which variables explain the rise in house prices the best?
- Igglyboo 11y ago
  Because past behavior is not indicative of future behavior.
  - OrwellianChild 11y ago
    If the prediction works forward, it should be backward predictive too... That's not a sufficient condition, but it is necessary to validate the predictive power, provided assumptions haven't changed in the time period being tested.
  - lotyrin 11y ago
    Never?
  - pixl97 11y ago
    Which is why economics is not a science.

There's no justification for the assumption of a high coffee-to-chicken ratio implying up-and-coming. It's not an unreasonable assumption, but it's definitely anecdotal.

coldtea 11y ago

Well, as are most things in life, even in science before they are checked out -- they start as observations. The important thing is whether it serves well as a predictor. If we were that interested we could do a scientific analysis, counting coffee shops and chicken places in different urban areas, averaging incomes, checking trends etc. But since it's not that important to most of us, we can just use it as a kind of gauge of where things are going, and judge for ourselves if it has merit or not. Might help someone make a few bucks by buying property in the right area (although the most succesful of tose people already use this and a ton of other metrics, plus insider knowledge of future municipal plans etc).

bossrat 11y ago
right, which shows you the value of Big Data. Probably the best measures of real estate value trends are available not to real estate experts, but to Google starting with everybody's inboxes, combined with search, geolocation, etc.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Hmm, yes, this raises an ethical issue too (kinda like "insider trading" but being "insider" for the whole world...)

ubernostrum 11y ago

It's anecdotal, but enough reliable anecdotes do actually turn into "data". My personal marker has always been, when visiting a city for the first time, to pay attention to the roadside advertisements I see on the ride from the airport to the city center. Aside from obvious things like payday/title loan shops, the most reliable indicator I've seen of a neighborhood being badly off is ads for cheap dentures and dental implants.

riskneural 11y ago
Agreed... and there is certainly no reason to restrict the analysis to just two types of shops. However, fried chicken and coffee shops make for a really catchy way to introduce the possibilities of geo-analysis. I think maybe the point of the blog was to introduce a type of analysis, rather than to test for up and coming areas?
5h 11y ago
Being london, fried chicken shops attract late night drunken folk wandering around doing what late night drunken folk will do.
- collyw 11y ago
  Only if they are open late at night. Last time I was in London there wasn't much after a certain time.
amyjess 11y ago
For me, check cashing shops are a huge sign I'm in a poor neighborhood. Businesses with signs in Spanish is another, though that's probably specific to Texas and the southwest, since we have a lot of poor Hispanic neighborhoods here. Unfortunately, the Hispanic neighborhoods here are almost universally poor. You go farther north, there probably won't be many Hispanic neighborhoods at all. Put them together, and seeing "Cambiamos Cheques" is a huge red flag.
- scarecrowbob 11y ago
  Your experience here is a bit anecdotal and might say a bit about what your frame of reference for what it means to be "hispanic". But of course, I don't know you, so feel free to ignore my point :D However, if you walk around the (objectively affluent) La Cantera mall in San Antonio, you'll hear maybe 1/3 of the conversations in Spanish. About 30% of the folks in Texas speak Spanish, so if you're in Texas you're in a hispanic area by definition....what you're describing are areas where people are or aren't willing to pander to folks who aren't bilingual. I don't know if that describes a line between affluence and poverty though. It's possible, though I'm not sure if I believe it.

robmcm 11y ago

Peckham is up and coming though, so it seems to have worked to some extent, albeit a year too late.

tfgg 11y ago
That's the thing, you'd need to demonstrate how "coffee shop / chicken shop" density correlates with house prices over time, and whether it's a predictor or a lagging indicator. There might be better correlators - art galleries and cocktail bars are probably other good ones, or most effects might be mostly priced in, or house price increases might be mostly related to investment in repairing shoddy properties, etc. etc. I do think it's a cute way for someone who doesn't know London that well to quickly find likely up-and-coming areas, though and a good starting hypothesis.
- robmcm 11y ago
  I could be that often coffee shops take over old chicken shops given the size and locations. In London I have observed that gentrification often stems from students living in a cheap area, they make it cool with lots of bars, pubs, events etc. This attracts graduates, who are typically DINKYs, they then add to the available cash in the area and start buying property. Eventually they have kids and the area becomes more mature and expensive. The area next on the tube/train line is typically next to get gentrified by the graduates: Clapham -> Balham/Clapham Junction, East Dulwich -> Peckham/Brockley/Forest Hill, Shorditch -> Dalston/Hakney, whilst new students pick new areas, influenced by cheap rent.
- willyt 11y ago
  You'd have to filter for 'trendy' ones though. Something like cocktail bars based out of shipping containers on top of abandoned multi-storey car parks or cocktail bars with the same names as businesses at the same address that used to be shoe shops. :-) Something like that...
branchless 11y ago
Peckham was "up and coming" when I was there in 2000. Good luck with that. Just for you: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/london-property-market-boosted-by-people-pretending-grim-places-are-great-2013053070398 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/london-property-m... "But how would I live without all the art galleries I never visit, my four-hour daily commute, being groped on the Tube, black snot, getting mugged for my iPhone, and my upstairs neighbour’s regular all-night dubstep sessions?" I lived in Peckham. One night I went next door to tell my neighbour to stop playing dance music full volume at 4am. Another time I phoned the police and they would only send someone round when they had enough backup. "Good times".

88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago

This isn't anecdotal - even an anecdote would have a single data point. This is just a completely untested model.

branchless 11y ago

Peckham! But yes I agree, though it's tempting to draw a link...

discardorama 11y ago

Why not try a backtest? Pick a point in time (say, Jan 1, 2011). Pick another data point (say, Jan 1 2015). See which variables explain the rise in house prices the best?

Igglyboo 11y ago
Because past behavior is not indicative of future behavior.
- OrwellianChild 11y ago
  If the prediction works forward, it should be backward predictive too... That's not a sufficient condition, but it is necessary to validate the predictive power, provided assumptions haven't changed in the time period being tested.
- lotyrin 11y ago
  Never?
- pixl97 11y ago
  Which is why economics is not a science.