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MIT's "Hot Or Not" Site For Neighborhoods Could Help Shape Cities

Posted by samzenpus on from the another-afternoon-wasted dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "When you walk around a city, there are things you can just sense, like if you've wandered into a dodgy neighborhood, or where the new happening spot is. Intuitively, we know that a city's more intangible characteristics, like class or uniqueness, play a big role in what it’s like to live there, but until now there was no way to actually quantify that idea. Researchers from MIT Media Lab may have found a way to measure this 'aesthetic capital' of cities, with their website Place Pulse, a tool to crowdsource people's perception of cities by judging digital snapshots—a sort of 'hot or not' for urban neighborhoods. Some 4,000 geotagged Google Streetview images and 8,000 participants later, the team found that by using digital images and crowdsourced feedback, they can accurately quantify the diverse vibes within a city (pdf), which in turn can help us better understand issues like inequality and safety."

55 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Hot or not? by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 1

    I guess the Red Light districts or the Gang Warfare districts won't be "hot" enough...

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:Hot or not? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      What's the ol' saying? "Don't shit where you eat" Ahh, that's it!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  2. MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can I get an overlay of drive by shootings?

  3. Um.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Any reason that home sales prices compared wouldn't tell us this? Prices are determined largely by lot size and square footage. The other major factor is location, location, location. It should be pretty trivial to figure out how large this location factor plays into price.

    1. Re:Um.... by Immerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That assumes that the "vibe" of a location correlates well with income, which I would consider a highly suspect assumption - we already know that income does not correlate with happiness, honesty, etc. much beyond the point where people can reliably keep a roof over their heads and food in their belly - i.e. very little within the US.

      One example is artist communities - they have a tendency to spring up semi-organically in low-rent areas (the starving artist stereotype having a solid grounding in reality) and transform them into vibrant communities. I've heard firsthand stories of the transformation of Cannery Row in Monterrey - started out with a bunch of hippies moving into the largely abandoned fish-canning district because the rents were cheap, and once you had a bunch of creative, good natured people in one place things just sort of took off. Of course eventually people with money took notice of the new atmosphere and moved in, driving prices up, but for quite a while it was a cheap and desirable place to live, provided you didn't mind the smell of cannabis smoke.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    2. Re:Um.... by icebike · · Score: 4, Interesting

      but for quite a while it was a cheap and desirable place to live

      Cheap and Desirable are like water and oil. You can mix them for a while, but over time they separate.

      Still the project has merit, as long as there were some method of continued crowed sourced voting, because
      things change over time, but street-view images don't change that often.

      There should be an app for this.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    3. Re:Um.... by cusco · · Score: 2

      When we first moved to Seattle and were house hunting my uncle gave me a really good piece of advice. He said, "Get a copy of 'The Stranger' (a local alternative lifestyle newspaper) and figure out where all the gays are moving to. It will be cheap, and as soon as they start renovating the neighborhood prices will go through the roof." Rosa fell in love with a house somewhere else, but those neighborhoods have quintupled in value.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    4. Re:Um.... by kermidge · · Score: 1

      I've watched it happen in two medium-sized cities (pop. ~ 200,00 or so) each over a ten-year period. In both, it was an area near or basically in downtown, formerly a mix of business, retail, office, some housing in the upper stories, that had for various reasons gotten run down. Often the process had apparently been accelerated by the combo of suburbs and shopping centres. There's still be some shops, some housing, amidst too many empty storefronts and whole buildings.

      The city might tinker with zoning, an enterprising building owner or holding company might figure that it'd be better to lower rents than to pay taxes on empty space, so a mix of people would move in - downtown workers, students, artists, and, yes, in the day, hippies, whatever that conjures in your mind. They generally were members of the aforementioned groups. Some new biz would open - an eatery, a small grocery, a candle shop, what have you. It became a neighborhood where you lived, worked in or nearby, knew your neighbors, played and enjoyed.

      After a while, as you say, the area became prosperous; few vacancies of any type, rents got raised, buildings got bought and condo-ized, the place often becoming rather sterile and uninviting in the process, apart maybe for a couple of up-scale clubs and eateries, maybe a high-end fashion shop and gallery or so. The folks that then lived there considered it charming in some way, no doubt, but much of the vibrancy was gone, replaced by the hustle of flash and trash sophistication so beloved by upwardly mobile rich folks - more image than substance, in my book, a gloss of final coat on the sterility and blandness.

      But for five, ten years, even longer, a fine place to live, the kind of place that when you walked out of a morning just looking at it made you feel good, and belonged.

    5. Re:Um.... by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) will do that to home values. The GLBT is a close community that places safety and social interaction at the top of their list. They also have more money to spend on housing bidding wars. So ya, 'The Stranger' is good advise. We see the same phenomena happening in Houston as well.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  4. Hot or Not for cities by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 1

    Just the other day I told Detroit that I didn't want to ruin my special friendship with her by moving into her while I simultaneously eyebanged the unattainably hot San Francisco and consoled myself with the knowledge that she's high maintenance and her wild living will make her look especially butt ugly fifty years from now.

  5. Hot or not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How about trailer park trash or poor black areas? Oops, can't make true observations, might upset the PC crowd.

  6. Great! by chill · · Score: 1

    Now add that to the navigation software in my GPS and I know what neighborhoods to avoid and where to troll for prostitutes or drug dealers!

    Add that into the GPS in rental cars and you get a major news item -- from a few years ago when this caused outrage in Chicago. I can't find the specific story, but it was big for a few days.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  7. I question ... by chuckugly · · Score: 2

    I question anything that lists Washington DC as the safest place.

  8. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Please identify the hot women with low self esteem everywhere. They are the only girls I can really talk to.

  9. Slashdotted already by GlobalEcho · · Score: 2

    You would think MIT of all places would be able to put together a website capable of withstanding real traffic.

    1. Re:Slashdotted already by kwerle · · Score: 1

      You would think that /. would be polite and warn folks.

      Oh, look at your uid. You've been here long enough that you certainly know better.

    2. Re:Slashdotted already by Proteus · · Score: 1

      UID trolling makes me giggle.

      --
      We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
    3. Re:Slashdotted already by Crizzam · · Score: 1

      Me too. :)

    4. Re:Slashdotted already by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Do you watch article comments looking for posts related to slashdot UID so you can waltz in with your 1926?

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    5. Re:Slashdotted already by Proteus · · Score: 1

      That would be a tremendous waste of time. So no.

      --
      We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
  10. Great. Crowdsourced profiling. by stevegee58 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Onoz! Look at all those black people! Must be a bad neighborhood!
    Sounds real reliable.

  11. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by TWiTfan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just judge a neighborhood by the number of black and hispanic people in it.

    And so do you. But YOU won't say it.

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
  12. Re:Great. Crowdsourced profiling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Statisically-speaking they often are. We can't let facts get in the way of our PC beliefs, right?

  13. calling it by fazey · · Score: 2

    I see this turning into a lawsuit when real estate prices start to be affected by it.

    1. Re:calling it by NobleSavage · · Score: 2

      Yes and there will be a spam potential as real estate agents, business owners, and residents of a neighborhood try to artificially increase their rankings.

    2. Re:calling it by cusco · · Score: 1

      That actually was the second thing that occurred to me when I RTFS. The first was, "Why do I give a shit about the opinion of a herd of hipster douchebags?"

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    3. Re:calling it by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      I was recently researching an area where I was going to place an offer on a house. After taking into account square footage and the asking price of other homes in the area along with public tax records and other public records that i was able to find I decided on a house and a price. I offered 15k less than the asking price and they excepted with in 45 minutes. There is already plenty of information available to annoy Realtors.

    4. Re:calling it by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      If they accepted your first offer, you paid too much.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:calling it by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      Could be but I still got it for about $18 less/sq.ft. than they have been selling {not asking} for in that neighborhood.

    6. Re:calling it by kermidge · · Score: 1

      I wonder if they kept browser referrer info from those who did the surveys, to see what might reasonably be gotten by way of info indicating any useful demographic data. Who would learn of the survey site, from where, and who would bother to spend any time going through the images? Would everyone rating image pairs automatically be a hipster douchebag? Or maybe you mean it's the hipster douchebags from MIT who did this.

    7. Re:calling it by vux984 · · Score: 1

      After taking into account square footage and the asking price of other homes in the area along with public tax records and other public records that i was able to find I decided on a house and a price. I offered 15k less than the asking price and they excepted with in 45 minutes.

      They were probably just delighted you didn't notice that they had an idiotic floor plan and the carpets all were all covered in shit. I mean, square footage and tax records are great. Two houses can be the same size, same age, and assessed the same taxes and still be easily worth $20,000 or more apart.

      But I'm sure you did actually base your decision on the relative merits of the actual house you were buying rather than just the demographic real estate data.

      It also doesn't take into account the sellers finances. In my experience that's the biggest factor on price. Do they need to move or do they need the money? Divorcing - they probably just want out... job transfer they want out quick... already put an offer on a new place they want out before the deal closes and the double mortgage payments they can't possibly afford start... do they just want a bigger yard for the kids and pets? they can afford to ignore the low ball offers, ditto if they are looking to downsize and retire; unless there are health issues or expenses motivating the sale they too can afford to wait.

      I sold my last place 15k above asking. First offer we got came in 5k below and we turned it down. Two weeks later we had 2 offers to choose from.

      The place we bought, the owners moved all of $500 bucks. They weren't in a rush to sell. We could have gotten the place 3 doors down across the street for $10k less, but this one was better. End unit, next to a creek, great floor plan... the owners knew they'd get their asking, if not from us then someone else.

    8. Re:calling it by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      You are correct there were other factors not the least of which was the sellers motivation. All these houses were built at the same time and they were looking to build a neighbor hood for the average family you know 2.5 kid. Most of the houses for sale in the neighborhood are still the first owner and they are looking to downsize.

      I am very familiar with the houses in that neighborhood I have two brothers and a few friends that own houses in that neighborhood. This house has the original floor plan. I have kids and I'll be replacing the floor covering in about five years regardless {it has very new floor coverings clean no stains}.

      I also took into account things like shingles, flashings, gutters, run off, landscaping, erosion, and foundation these can be a big money sink.

      I could have probably picked up the same basic house about a block down but it had a patio over the sewer and a great big tree about 7ft from the sewer line funny thing is they would have tried to use that otherwise nice looking patio and shade tree as a selling point.

  14. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by MightyYar · · Score: 2

    You must be a joy in the Caribbean.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  15. need real data by KernelMuncher · · Score: 1

    I think the photo-analysis would be most compelling if it identified bad neighborhoods from pics of shootings, stabbings, drug deals, etc. Everything else is just a proxy.

  16. I can tell when a neighborhood is bad by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

    The handwriting is on the wall. Literally, with all the graffiti!

    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    1. Re:I can tell when a neighborhood is bad by kermidge · · Score: 1

      If it's all gang tag, pass; if it's mostly street art, maybe.

  17. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I judge a neighborhood by a "sameness" factor - if the vast majority of people who live there dress the same, look the same, talk the same and have houses/homes that all look pretty much the same, something is very fucking weird and I get the fuck out. This applies to rich white neighborhoods as much as it does to poor black ones.

  18. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I do too. If the neighborhood is all-white, I don't want to live there. I am a Caucasian. I decided early on that I want a more diverse area for raising my kids. It has worked out very well. E pluribus unum.

    I used to say that too, but then it took a few break ins before I realized you can't always tell the difference between "diversity" and "ghetto" until you live there. Multa adversus paucos.

  19. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 2

    My black neighbor drives a Mercedes, has a swimming pool, and a nicer lawn than I do.

    --
    Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
  20. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You're an idiot who is falling for the rich man's war against the poor's tactics. Racism (and you and the folks who modded you up are racists) is a tool to get you and your fellow idiots who are black and hispanic to fight each other so you won't realize that your poverty comes not from the blacks and hispanics "stealing your jobs" but in reality, it's the 1%ers who are keeping you, the black, and the hispanic down.

    You do realise that there are more whites on food stamps than blacks, do you not?

    If you see "ghetto culture"; that is, young, thuggish looking young men of any race, you see a bad neighborhood. If you see forty year olds you're seeing a good neighborhood. Race has nothing to do with it, age and poverty do. Most poor young men will be thugs no matter what their race.

  21. Re:Tag it by neminem · · Score: 1

    That's basically all I need, yeah. You can already tell whether a neighborhood sucks simply by looking at it in google streetview and determining the ratio of windows with metal grills to windows that don't have them.

    That said, I don't think google's image recognition is quite capable of performing that calculation by itself, so you can only perform that judgement one neighborhood at a time. If this works, it would be pretty neat.

  22. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My black neighbor drives a Mercedes, has a swimming pool, and a nicer lawn than I do.

    Does he live in a black neighborhood?

  23. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by Applekid · · Score: 1

    My black neighbor drives a Mercedes, has a swimming pool, and a nicer lawn than I do.

    Does he live in a black neighborhood?

    I don't think you can argue that it's not a black neighborhood, it's only an argument at what radius from that center point. At d = 1 house, it sounds like it's a 100% black neighborhood.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  24. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by rsborg · · Score: 2

    I just judge a neighborhood by the number of black and hispanic people in it.

    And so do you. But YOU won't say it.

    No, I judge by the following, based on the images I saw and my previous thoughts:

    • Amount of greenery
    • Road wear and graffiti
    • Signs of curation, ie, trimmed hedges, cut lawn, etc
    • Height of buildings divided by population visible for given time of day
    • number and condition of vehicles parked

    If you've read this far, you can probably tell that all of these point to how affluent/rich the area is, but as a non-rich person myself, I find over-opulence off-putting and prefer the more upper-middle-class look. Amazingly, it would be pretty simple to codify the above in a hueristic and probably get it 80-90% accurate in a comparison test (given adequate sampling factor). Anyone got other hueristics they were using in the pulse website?

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  25. Correlations by AdamHaun · · Score: 1

    I'm no statistician, but I ran quick-and-dirty linear correlations on the rankings from the MIT site with Excel (shut up; I'm at work). Oddly, the strongest correlation was a negative one between Safer and Depressing -- stronger even than Wealthier/Safer. Here are my results, if anyone's curious. (Some repeated for readability.)

    Wealthy/Boring: -.32
    Wealthy/Depressing: -.79
    Wealthy/Livelier: .49
    Wealthy/Safer: .79

    Safer/Wealthier: .79
    Safer/Boring: -.15
    Safer/Depressing: -.84
    Safer/Livelier: .24

    Livelier/Wealthier: .49
    Livelier/Boring: -.61
    Livelier/Depressing: -.22
    Livelier/Safer: .24

    Depressing/Wealthier: -.79
    Depressing/Boring: .27
    Depressing/Livelier: -.22
    Depressing/Safer: -.84

    Maybe an actual statistician can tell us something more interesting.

    --
    Visit the
  26. Street Smarts by TrollheartBlue · · Score: 1

    I thought this was called "street smarts" and could only be acquired by people who have actually lived in cities for a while. A neighborhood or area isn't going to have a sign stating so. Digital images can help with guesses, but even though a neighborhood looks badish, it could be quite a friendly place. Vice versa: A nice neighborhood doesn't equate to a safe neighborhood. A nice attempt but ultimately futile.

    --
    Hey, look at me! My opinion is valid because I found a website that says the same thing.
  27. Where's Bennett Haselton today? by Beorytis · · Score: 1

    This would be a much more worthy application of his frequently-discussed-here techniques than deciding whether J.K. Rowling would still be popular under a pseudonym.

  28. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by NotSanguine · · Score: 1, Informative

    I do too. If the neighborhood is all-white, I don't want to live there. I am a Caucasian. I decided early on that I want a more diverse area for raising my kids. It has worked out very well. E pluribus unum.

    I used to say that too, but then it took a few break ins before I realized you can't always tell the difference between "diversity" and "ghetto" until you live there. Multa adversus paucos.

    I've lived in a majority hispanic neighborhood for the past 17 years and it's been quite nice. Lots of families and children and the neighborhood is quite diverse (I live a few blocks from a major university). I suspect that you are confusing poor neighborhoods with neighborhoods with people of color. They are not necessarily the same thing. I've been to places which are lily white and very poor, where the crime is just out of control. The issue is poverty and hopelessness, not the amount of melanin in the skin of the residents.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  29. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    I realized you can't always tell the difference between "diversity" and "ghetto" until you live there.

    Just because you don't have that skill doesn't mean it is impossible. Many of us have that skill.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  30. Re:Great. Crowdsourced profiling. by ralphaostrander · · Score: 1

    I know no one in a hurry to move to a black neighborhood. I can tell by all the Blacks trying to earn enough to move to white ones. Myself I avoid neighborhoods that the people have cars not expensive enough to put in the garage. Lot size smaller than a half acre. Gated with not more than 25 homes. The up side of East Greater Phoenix this is 750,000 or less Now If I could afford this in a place without rattle snakes and scorpions that would be great.

  31. Re:Great. Crowdsourced profiling. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Maybe people who are treated worse than other people on account of the color of their skin are more likely to end up in depressed neighborhoods. This doesn't have to be a racist thing.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  32. Re: MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks count by Third+Position · · Score: 1

    You do realise that there are more whites on food stamps than blacks, do you not?

    No matter how many times that old canard is stated, it's still not true.

    --
    American Third Position
    Finally, a real choice!
  33. Re:MIT Researchers have created a Starbucks counte by magic+maverick+ · · Score: 1

    You're an idiot. I just a neighborhood on how the house quality. A poor neighborhood has poor quality housing (little better than shacks), a rich neighborhood has big houses and expensive apartment buildings.

    Now everyone lives in the USA, and not everyone is a racist.

    --
    HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
  34. Re:I'll say it. by NotSanguine · · Score: 1

    We need to start facing reality and figuring out how to deal with it. The faith that every racial group is exactly the same except for appearance was necessary for getting rid of Jim Crow and its associated evils. But now it has come to be a problem because it keeps us from finding how to deal with reality in a fair way.

    There is only one race. The human race. Homo Sapiens. There most certainly are genetic and cultural differences between individuals and groups within our species. However, classifying intelligence and the potential for success on the amount of melanin in the skin of an individual is foolhardy and is not borne out by the research.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  35. MIT=HOT??? by SeattleGameboy · · Score: 1

    Yes, because we all know, nobody knows what is cool and what is hot better than the students/professors at MIT...