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# The coffeehouse effect
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/perking-up-the-neighborhood/
- Published: 2026-10-18T23:55:43.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-18T23:58:36.000Z
- Description: More cafes may tell us where Mid City is headed, but not really indicate that gentrification is happening.
- Author: Mukul Verma

PJ's Coffee has opened its doors on Government Street, and Dutch Bros. has filed for permits to build farther down the corridor, near Baton Rouge Community College.

Mid City already has French Truck, Las Brujas, City Roots and a Starbucks tucked inside Albertsons, with Brew Ha-Ha over on Jefferson. 

**Why it matters:** A coffee shop is a "[third place](https://www.redeyebr.com/br-third-places/)," somewhere that isn't home or work, where you can sit for a while and visit. But researchers have found coffee shops may also be telling us something about the neighborhoods they are in. When they multiply and fill up, a neighborhood may be gaining value and gentrifying.

**The details:** Harvard economists Edward Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca paired Yelp data with housing, Census and streetscape data to watch how neighborhoods change.

- One more Starbucks in a ZIP code in a given year lined up with roughly a 0.5% bump in home prices.
- Yelp activity often preceded shifts in housing prices and demographics, making it a possible early warning sign of gentrification.
- But the study stops short of saying the coffee shop causes any of it.

**A second take:** Zillow ran its own numbers and found homes within a quarter-mile of a Starbucks gained 96% in value from 1997 to 2013\. U.S. homes overall gained 65%.

**Yes, but:** A modest rise in home prices doesn't automatically price anyone out. That matters in Baton Rouge, where prices, housing supply and neighborhood conditions look very different from the big, expensive cities that usually come up in conversations about gentrification.

**The bottom line:** Yelp reviews and new coffee shops can help us "nowcast" a neighborhood, reading change as it happens. But they belong alongside the harder numbers on housing, Census, displacement and affordability, not in place of them.

And let's be honest. A good cup of coffee a short walk from your front door is worth paying a little extra for*.*

💡

Get a cup of coffee and discuss urban ideas at the Center for Planning Excellence's[ Smart Growth Summit ](https://summit.cpex.org/?ref=redeyebr.com)next week. Details. (**RedEye* is a news partner to the Summit.)

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