Complex Causal Structures of Neighbourhood Change: Evidence From a Functionalist Model and Yelp Data

Why some neighbourhoods change over time but others retain their identity remains an open question. Several attempts have been made to answer this question, with a family of models emerging as a result. However, empirically evaluating neighbourhood evolution models is a challenging task, because most require information that is difficult to obtain in traditional sources. For this reason, researchers have turned to new datasets, such as census microdata, Twitter, and Yelp. In this study, we articulate a functional model of neighbourhood change and continuity, adapted from a classical functionalist model proposed by Stinchcombe in 1968. We argue this model provides a relatively simple way to capture key aspects of the complex causal structure of neighbourhood change that are implicit in much neighbourhood change research but rarely formulated explicitly. We demonstrate how to assess the proposed model empirically using large-scale data from Yelp.com. Our results indicate that our approach can potentially help to understand the nature of neighbourhood change and be useful in different applications.