IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v56y2019i5p868-884.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Use and validation of location-based services in urban research: An example with Dutch restaurants

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Arribas-Bel

    (Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, UK)

  • Jessie Bakens

    (Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market, Maastricht University, Netherlands)

Abstract

This article focuses on the use of big data for urban geography research. We collect data from the location-based service Foursquare in The Netherlands and employ it to obtain a rich catalogue of restaurant locations and other urban amenities, as well as a measure of their popularity among users. Because the Foursquare data can be combined with traditional sources of socio-economic data obtained from Statistics Netherlands, we can quantify, document and characterise some of the biases inherent in these new sources of data in the context of urban applications. A detailed analysis is given as to when this type of big data is useful and when it is misleading. Although the users of Foursquare are not representative of the whole population, we argue that this inherent bias can be exploited for research about the attractiveness of urban landscapes and consumer amenities in addition to the more traditional data on urban amenities.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Arribas-Bel & Jessie Bakens, 2019. "Use and validation of location-based services in urban research: An example with Dutch restaurants," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(5), pages 868-884, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:5:p:868-884
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098018779554
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098018779554
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098018779554?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Dalmazzo & Guido de Blasio, 2011. "Amenities and skill‐biased agglomeration effects: Some results on Italian cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(3), pages 503-527, August.
    2. Harvey J. Miller, 2010. "The Data Avalanche Is Here. Shouldn’T We Be Digging?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 181-201, February.
    3. Roback, Jennifer, 1982. "Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1257-1278, December.
    4. Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri, 2021. "The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 7, pages 187-222, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Waldfogel, Joel, 2008. "The median voter and the median consumer: Local private goods and population composition," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 567-582, March.
    6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    7. Nathan Schiff, 2015. "Cities and product variety: evidence from restaurants," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(6), pages 1085-1123.
    8. Donald R. Davis & Jonathan I. Dingel & Joan Monras & Eduardo Morales, 2019. "How Segregated Is Urban Consumption?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1684-1738.
    9. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2006. "Urban Resurgence and the Consumer City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 1275-1299, July.
    10. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Human capital externalities in cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 51, pages 2243-2291, Elsevier.
    11. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    12. Francesca Mazzolari & David Neumark, 2012. "Immigration and product diversity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 1107-1137, July.
    13. Halvorsen, Robert & Palmquist, Raymond, 1980. "The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 474-475, June.
    14. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    15. J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), 2004. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Xuan & Tong, De & Huang, Jiangming & Zheng, Wenfeng & Kong, Minghui & Zhou, Guohui, 2022. "What matters in the e-commerce era? Modelling and mapping shop rents in Guangzhou, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Occhini, Giulia & Tranos, Emmanouil & Wolf, Levi John, 2023. "Measuring a country’s digital industrial structure: commercial websites and weakly supervised classification to the rescue," SocArXiv h572n, Center for Open Science.
    3. Olson, Alex & Calderon-Figueroa, Fernando & Bidian, Olimpia & Silver, Daniel & Sanner, Scott, 2020. "Reading the city through its neighbourhoods: Deep text embeddings of Yelp reviews as a basis for determining similarity and change," SocArXiv 8jbvg, Center for Open Science.
    4. Xiaorong Jiang & Wei Wei & Shenglan Wang & Tao Zhang & Chengpeng Lu, 2021. "Effects of COVID-19 on Urban Population Flow in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-14, February.
    5. Jon Bannister & Anthony O’Sullivan, 2021. "Big Data in the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(15), pages 3061-3070, November.
    6. Silver, Daniel & Silva, Thiago H, 2021. "Complex Causal Structures of Neighbourhood Change: Evidence From a Functionalist Model and Yelp Data," SocArXiv wprf8, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kahn, Matthew E. & Walsh, Randall, 2015. "Cities and the Environment," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 405-465, Elsevier.
    2. Dieter Pennerstorfer & Nora Schindler & Christoph Weiss & Biliana Yontcheva, 2020. "Income Inequality and Product Variety: Empirical Evidence," Economics working papers 2020-17, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    3. Nathan, Max, 2013. "The Wider Economic Impacts of High-Skilled Migrants: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    5. Gianandrea Lanzara & G. Alfredo Minerva, 2019. "Tourism, amenities, and welfare in an urban setting," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 452-479, June.
    6. Alberto Dalmazzo & Guido de Blasio, 2005. "Where do human capital externalities end up?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 554, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Alberto Dalmazzo & Guido De Blasio, 2007. "Skill-Biased Agglomeration Effects and Amenities: Theory with an Application to Italian Cities," Department of Economics University of Siena 503, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    8. Liang Zheng, 2016. "What city amenities matter in attracting smart people?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(2), pages 309-327, June.
    9. Jessie Bakens & Raymond JGM Florax & Henri LF de Groot & Peter Mulder, 2022. "Living apart together: The economic value of ethnic diversity in cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 49(8), pages 2267-2282, October.
    10. Alberto Dalmazzo & Guido Blasio, 2007. "Production and consumption externalities of human capital: an empirical study for Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 359-382, April.
    11. Kim, Dongsoo & Liu, Feng & Yezer, Anthony, 2009. "Do inter-city differences in intra-city wage differentials have any interesting implications?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 203-209, November.
    12. Joan Monras, 2020. "Immigration and Wage Dynamics: Evidence from the Mexican Peso Crisis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(8), pages 3017-3089.
    13. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    14. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    15. Kristoffer Moeller, 2018. "Culturally clustered or in the cloud? How amenities drive firm location decision in Berlin," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 728-758, September.
    16. Alessia Matano & Paolo Naticchioni, 2009. "Wage distribution and the spatial sorting of workers and firms," Working Papers - Dipartimento di Economia 8-DEISFOL, Dipartimento di Economia, Sapienza University of Rome, revised 2009.
    17. Dr Max Nathan, 2013. "The wider economic impacts of high-skilled migrants: a survey of the literature," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 413, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    18. Theodore Papageorgiou, 2022. "Occupational Matching and Cities," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 82-132, July.
    19. Fredrik Carlsen & Stefan Leknes, 2022. "For whom are cities good places to live?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(12), pages 2177-2190, December.
    20. Rafael González-Val, 2015. "Cross-sectional growth in US cities from 1990 to 2000," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 83-106, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:5:p:868-884. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.