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(THE CONVERSATION) The Big Apple versus The Big Orange. The City of Dreams versus The City of Angels. I’m referring, of course, to the ongoing rivalry between New York City and Los Angeles. Hilarious “survey” videos and talk shows will give you one picture of the cities. My colleagues and I decided to take a more serious look at the differences between the cities, so we studied what everyone else was talking about – on Twitter.
We set out to answer a simple research question: Are people who are located near each other likely to tweet about similar things? To do so, we analyzed millions of GPS-enabled tweets across New York City and LA. This type of study – looking at huge amounts of social media traffic by location – is useful for more than tracking pop culture memes in different cities. It could be valuable for understanding many aspects of urban life, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If we were considering the case of a single, small community that takes pride in local events, celebrities and culture, the answer to our research question would be a resounding “yes.” One challenge in comparing two large, international cities is the reality that globalization has led to unprecedented interaction among multiple cultures and…
