Livehoods — A new way to understand a city
using social media.
By analyzing check-in patterns throughout the city,
we discover its structure.
Our techniques produce dynamic maps of the city,
reflecting the every-day experiences of real people.

Re-Imagining the City in the Age of Social Media

Livehoods offer a new way to conceptualize the dynamics, structure, and character of a city by analyzing the social media its residents generate. By looking at people's checkin patterns at places across the city, we create a mapping of the different dynamic areas that comprise it. Each Livehood tells a different story of the people and places that shape it.
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Using Machine-Learning to Study Cities

Our research hypothesis is that the character of an urban area is defined not just by the the types of places found there, but also by the people that make it part of their daily life. To explore this idea, we use data from approximately 18 million check-ins collected from the location-based social network foursquare, and apply clustering algorithms to discover the different areas of the city.
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Current Maps

  • News and Press

    • Livehood at ICWSM

      Our work with Livehoods won the best paper award at ICWSM in Dublin this June! Watch the video from our presentation.

    • Livehoods on CBC Radio

      Justin was on the CBC Radio program Spark talking with host Nora Young about the Livehoods Project. Listen to the full interview.

    • Livehoods in the Atlantic

      Livehoods appeared as the Map of the Day on the Atlantic's Cities blog. See their post about us.

    • Wired Insider

      Wired's Insider blog says Livehoods is "taking a big swing" at minining insights into "cultural habits and how societies flow." Read the full post.
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  • Recent Tweets

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