Texas Investment Network


Recent Blog


Pitching Help Desk


Testimonials

"I wish to thank the Dealflow Investment Network for their splendid service on listing our project summary. Our entire fund raise was achieved within 5-months from China. Long flight, but well worth it. I am happy to give a recommendation."
James E. Mack

 BLOG >> Recent

Recommending New Amenities for Neighborhoods [Systems Thinking
Posted on April 28, 2016 @ 08:06:00 AM by Paul Meagher

This morning I started reading a research paper by MIT researchers César A. Hidalgo and Lisa E. Castañer called Do we need another coffee house? The amenity space and the evolution of neighborhoods (2015, PDF Link). The concept of an Amenity Space is a potentially powerful concept as it can be used to recommend what amenities might be missing, or not, in a neighborhood. The concept leads to a potential discovery technique for entrepreneurs and investors to find new businesses that might be viable in a given neighborhood.

One of the authors, Cesar Hidalgo, recently wrote a book called Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies (2015) that looked like it might be interesting.

I decided to read the article to get some exposure to Cesar's thinking and because I was exploring the Atlas for Economic Complexity and realized he was also a driving force behind that impressive visualization project.

In this article, the authors used Google Maps to gather data on the amenities available in various neighborhoods. They computed the correlations between the amenities (how strongly the presence of one amenity predicted another) and represented the strength of these correlations by the thickness of the links between the amenity nodes. You can read more about how the visualization was constructed at the bottom of the diagram.

The paper proposes an algorithm that generates recommendations for new amenities for a neighborhood. I recommend you read the paper if you want these details.

The concept of an amenity space might be useful not just for making recommendations for new neighborhood amenities but for explaining why certain destinations are good tourist destinations, why real estate prices are higher in certain neighborhoods, what cities might do to improve their neighborhoods, etc....

Another point the authors make in the paper is that neighborhoods often have a pattern of specialization (e.g., tourism amenities) which might suggest a particular type of amenity that would be a good fit. An example from my own experience is the relationship between world-class golf courses and the need for nearby airport facilities for private jets. One tourist amenity (world-class golf courses) drives the need for a complementary amenity (airport for private jets to land). High-end golfers apparently also like high-quality whiskey and a nearby single-malt whiskey distillery with lounge and lodgings benefited significantly from the arrival of the golf course to the neighborhood. The golf courses are driving a new evolution of amenities in this rural community. While the concept of amenity space was developed based upon business co-location data in larger cities, it might be useful for thinking about expected co-location patterns in rural areas as well.

It also appears that the recommender system might take the form of a lens model as linear regression techniques were used to make the recommendations.

Permalink 

 Archive 
 

Archive


 November 2023 [1]
 June 2023 [1]
 May 2023 [1]
 April 2023 [1]
 March 2023 [6]
 February 2023 [1]
 November 2022 [2]
 October 2022 [2]
 August 2022 [2]
 May 2022 [2]
 April 2022 [4]
 March 2022 [1]
 February 2022 [1]
 January 2022 [2]
 December 2021 [1]
 November 2021 [2]
 October 2021 [1]
 July 2021 [1]
 June 2021 [1]
 May 2021 [3]
 April 2021 [3]
 March 2021 [4]
 February 2021 [1]
 January 2021 [1]
 December 2020 [2]
 November 2020 [1]
 August 2020 [1]
 June 2020 [4]
 May 2020 [1]
 April 2020 [2]
 March 2020 [2]
 February 2020 [1]
 January 2020 [2]
 December 2019 [1]
 November 2019 [2]
 October 2019 [2]
 September 2019 [1]
 July 2019 [1]
 June 2019 [2]
 May 2019 [3]
 April 2019 [5]
 March 2019 [4]
 February 2019 [3]
 January 2019 [3]
 December 2018 [4]
 November 2018 [2]
 September 2018 [2]
 August 2018 [1]
 July 2018 [1]
 June 2018 [1]
 May 2018 [5]
 April 2018 [4]
 March 2018 [2]
 February 2018 [4]
 January 2018 [4]
 December 2017 [2]
 November 2017 [6]
 October 2017 [6]
 September 2017 [6]
 August 2017 [2]
 July 2017 [2]
 June 2017 [5]
 May 2017 [7]
 April 2017 [6]
 March 2017 [8]
 February 2017 [7]
 January 2017 [9]
 December 2016 [7]
 November 2016 [7]
 October 2016 [5]
 September 2016 [5]
 August 2016 [4]
 July 2016 [6]
 June 2016 [5]
 May 2016 [10]
 April 2016 [12]
 March 2016 [10]
 February 2016 [11]
 January 2016 [12]
 December 2015 [6]
 November 2015 [8]
 October 2015 [12]
 September 2015 [10]
 August 2015 [14]
 July 2015 [9]
 June 2015 [9]
 May 2015 [10]
 April 2015 [9]
 March 2015 [8]
 February 2015 [8]
 January 2015 [5]
 December 2014 [11]
 November 2014 [10]
 October 2014 [10]
 September 2014 [8]
 August 2014 [7]
 July 2014 [5]
 June 2014 [7]
 May 2014 [6]
 April 2014 [3]
 March 2014 [8]
 February 2014 [6]
 January 2014 [5]
 December 2013 [5]
 November 2013 [3]
 October 2013 [4]
 September 2013 [11]
 August 2013 [4]
 July 2013 [8]
 June 2013 [10]
 May 2013 [14]
 April 2013 [12]
 March 2013 [11]
 February 2013 [19]
 January 2013 [20]
 December 2012 [5]
 November 2012 [1]
 October 2012 [3]
 September 2012 [1]
 August 2012 [1]
 July 2012 [1]
 June 2012 [2]


Categories


 Agriculture [77]
 Bayesian Inference [14]
 Books [18]
 Business Models [24]
 Causal Inference [2]
 Creativity [7]
 Decision Making [17]
 Decision Trees [8]
 Definitions [1]
 Design [38]
 Eco-Green [4]
 Economics [14]
 Education [10]
 Energy [0]
 Entrepreneurship [74]
 Events [7]
 Farming [21]
 Finance [30]
 Future [15]
 Growth [19]
 Investing [25]
 Lean Startup [10]
 Leisure [5]
 Lens Model [9]
 Making [1]
 Management [12]
 Motivation [3]
 Nature [22]
 Patents & Trademarks [1]
 Permaculture [36]
 Psychology [2]
 Real Estate [5]
 Robots [1]
 Selling [12]
 Site News [17]
 Startups [12]
 Statistics [3]
 Systems Thinking [3]
 Trends [11]
 Useful Links [3]
 Valuation [1]
 Venture Capital [5]
 Video [2]
 Writing [2]