i can predict it with near 100% accuracy anywhere in the world. just show me where all the artists and musicians in your city hangout and pay less than 900/mo on rent.
Essentially correct. You can see way ahead of time where this will happen.
That said - there's a new kind of 'suburban gentrification' which is another thing altogether: middle class people not looking to be so much hip, rather than just live in a decent affordable area near downtown that's not crackburg.
> That's where Google and FB have an advantage. They track everyone's location and interests
I was thinking about this two summers ago when there was that migration “crisis” in Europe, i.e. that Facebook knew better than anyone else on the planet how many immigrants there were (give or take) and especially from where exactly they were coming (that was a very contentious point back then) based on their location data and on the location data of their friends and families left at home. Come to think of it, I bet they could also “guess” the general level of education for many of those immigrants, that was also a very, very hot topic back then.
Why _of course_? In all the western cities I know the “gayer” districts usually had their share of gentrification around a decade in the past.
Of course artists and creative people in cities tend to be more liberal (because cities in general tend to be more liberal). But in my experience it is rare that the lgbt epicenter and the art epicenter are colocated. Of course art people might hang a rainbow flag out, but that doesn’t mean there are more gays/lesbians/queers living there.
From my observations, although much has been written about this subject as well. For example, Boston's South End (struggling and transient), Provincetown, Ma (cape cod) a forgotten blue collar village on the decline were all "discovered" by the gay culture and now, paradoxically, their gay character is threatened by big money moving in.
That said - there's a new kind of 'suburban gentrification' which is another thing altogether: middle class people not looking to be so much hip, rather than just live in a decent affordable area near downtown that's not crackburg.