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veen  ·  2470 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: MIT Media Lab uses Machine Learning to Quantify Neighborhood Improvements

    The finding that variables that predict the level of Streetscore in 2007 also predict the change in Streetscore between 2007 and 2014 seems to support a positive feedback loop—the essence of tipping models.

In the article I'm writing, I make a very similar argument in the realm of transportation: that better-off places are often improved more than worse-off places, making inequality worse. There, I trace the existence of the feedback loop to problematic assumptions in cost-benefit analysis continually tipping the balance in favor of the well-off.

I wonder what keeps the feedback loop going in this case? My guess is that property value and taxes lead to a virtuous cycle, but I don't know enough about that to say for sure.