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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

So besides "chicken shops" which must be a regional indicator for poor or undesirable what other establishments are also present? There should be an obvious transition type of business that precedes the coffee shop. Combined with chicken shops perhaps the availability of different businesses could give entrepreneurs an indicator where to set up similar or buy up space?

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Pawnshops, payday loan services, barber shops... And pubs closed down, because it is too dangerous for them to operate. Also signs on restaurants "Customer only toilets"

Charity shops. Often when an area starts to fail as a shopping hub and retailers close when landlords can't get a new business in and have a void they still have to pay business rates. The way to avoid this is to charge rent to a charity shop which doesn't have to pay business rates, so they win even if the charity shop is paying lower rent than the business before.

For example Muswell Hill.

Yeah I would say pawn shops and payday loan services are the biggest indicators of a neighborhood in decline. They seem like the two predatory businesses that show up just as a neighborhood is seeing people with any money leave.

Why barber shops? Don't well-to-do people also go to the barber to get their hair cut?

Of course not. They go to their stylist!

Most have the barber come to them or have a private barber in the building. My office has a separate room and a barber comes in every other week to cut hair.

Seriously? That is certainly not anything approaching the norm in the US.

They go to salons :).

(Joking.)

Tattoo parlors. Strip clubs. Hole-in-the-wall liquor stores. Pull-tab joints. Attended laundromats (people who live in bad neighborhoods don't have their own washers and dryers, and ones that are inside apartment buildings tend to get vandalized/broken into).

What's a pull-tab joint?

I imagine liquor stores that sell pull-tabs. I'm unaware of stores dedicated to selling pull-tabs but there are a lot of corner liquor stores that are more or less frequented by people purchasing pull-tabs and cigarettes more than anything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull-tab

Ah, thanks. FWIW, the UK equivalent is the scratchcard:

https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/games/gamestore/scratchca...

You can buy these in most newsagents, and as far as i know there aren't dedicated shops for them.

There are indeed dedicated stores for selling them in some areas. It probably varies by state.

The More You Know

I've never seen any in California, but the gist holds true. It's a good indicator that it is a poor part of town.

Bars on the windows and doors.

Or windows that have been completely bricked up.

I'd look at what type of cars are parked in the street at night.

Now that's an interesting indicator - many of these are variations of the same theme and lagging indicators. Yours is (except for areas in immediate transitions) a real time indicator idea. At least in the US.

It would definitely work in the UK as well - especially as you can tell the age of a car from the number-plate. Find a run down area and track the number of newer family cars or BMWs/Audis.

Will not work in the USA, poor black people buy new German luxury cars and live in dumps. I don't understand.

So look for Teslas?

...or the fact that there are cars parked on the street vs not.

I've lived in poor suburban neighborhoods and generally, the poorer the neighborhood, the more cars were parked on the street. I've lived in neighborhoods that looked like used car lots! Poorer neighborhoods tend to have more houses without garages. And in neighborhoods that have garages, the poorer families tend to use their garages as extra bedrooms, workshops, meth labs, basically anything BUT storing cars.

Note, this stereotype probably only works in the suburbs, because in urban areas, every potential parking spot is filled with a car by default.

Estate agents, particularly ones that specialise in rentals.

London has a horrendous housing problem at the moment.

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