ABSTRACT

In North America and around the globe there has been emerging recognition of the size and scope of urban depopulation or shrinkage (Weichman, 2008; Hollander et al., 2009). Although the shrinking cities literature has grown considerably in the last decade, there remains a lack of robust empirical study regarding the social perceptions of change, as well as comparative analysis of how places change across differing institutional and regulatory frameworks. In order to facilitate geographically targeted policymaking, this chapter uses a big data approach to examine attitudes around decline and change in six cities in Québec (Canada), Ontario (Canada) and New England (USA). Results of the sentiment analysis of Twitter data show that average sentiment was relatively consistent across six cities and that week-to-week fluctuations were consistent in 14 of the 15 pairwise relationships. The exploratory findings demonstrate the potential for big data research to advance our understanding of social perceptions of urban change.