Evaluating the impact of the 2012 Olympic Games policy on the regeneration of East London using spatio-temporal big data

Abstract

For urban governments, introducing policies has long been adopted as a main approach to instigate regeneration processes, and to promote social mixing and vitality within the city. However, due to the absence of large fine-grained datasets, the effects of these policies have been historically hard to evaluate. In this research, we illustrate how a combination of large-scale datasets, the Index of Deprivation and Foursquare data (an online geo-social network service) could be used to investigate the impact of the 2012 Olympic Games on the regeneration of East London neighbourhoods. We study and quantify both the physical and socio-economic aspects of this, where our empirical findings suggest that the target areas did indeed undergo regeneration after the Olympic project in some ways. In general, the growth rate of Foursquare venue density in Olympic host boroughs is higher than the city's average level since the preparation period of the Games and up to two years after the event. Furthermore, the deprivation levels in East London boroughs also saw improvements in various aspects after the Olympic Games. One negative outcome we notice is that the housing affordability becomes even more of an issue in East London areas with the regeneration gradually unfolding.