Sorry Silverlake - Sunset Strip Has the "Buzz"

Late last month at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, planning professors from USC and Columbia University presented what they call the "Geography of Buzz." It's a collection of "smart maps" depicting where entertainment "buzz" happens in New York City and Los Angeles. The authors sifted through 300,000 Getty images from 6,000 promotional events to create the maps through a photo-tagging process. The categories investigated were film, fashion, art, music, theater, and television.

Residents of hipster neighborhoods in both cities might be surprised by the results. The epicenter of LA buzz occurs in an arc stretching from Beverly Hills to Hollywood, roughly along the Sunset Strip. NOT in the much-touted "new centers of taste" - Silverlake and Echo Park. The authors explained this simply as a law of numbers (not enough events, parties, photo ops happen in those areas), and thus density. The majority of tastemakers are not risk-takers. And for good reason. If I want to host a fashion show and want the maximum number of attendees and photographers, I want it to be where the fashionistas and the paparazzi already are, not in some underground warehouse out east.

Admittedly, "buzz" is something that is difficult to quantify but it is something we all understand. The geography of buzz has important implications in real estate, and doesn't necessarily follow the same laws. The creative class - artists, filmmakers, designers, writers - is an extremely influential group and are extremely valuable to the economies of global cities like Los Angeles and New York. As we move into the digital age, it is more and more difficult to understand where things physically happen and how our cities are shaped by those events. Rather than experiencing a loss of place, we are becoming more and more equipped to understand how our cities work, in a digital way. And you thought hipsters took too many snapshots.