Spatio-temporal analysis of socioeconomic neighborhoods: The Open Source Longitudinal Neighborhood Analysis Package (OSLNAP)

The neighborhood effects literature represents a wide span of the social sciences broadly concerned with the influence of spatial context on social processes. From the study of segregation dynamics, the relationships between the built environment and health outcomes, to the impact of concentrated poverty on social efficacy, neighborhoods are a central construct in empirical work. From a dynamic lens, neighborhoods experience changes not only in their socioeconomic composition, but also in spatial extent; however, the literature has ignored the latter source of change. In this paper, we discuss the development of a novel, spatially explicit tool: the Open Source Longitudinal Neighborhood Analysis Package (OSLNAP) using the scientific Python ecosystem.