Prime locations in 125 Global Cities

(c) Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, Thilo. N. H. Albers, Kristian Behrens

Version 1.0, 2025-01, developed for our n our Prime Locations research paper (forthcoming in American Economic Review: Insights)

• Light-shaded pixels represent undevelopable areas.

• Dark-shaded pixels are developable areas, with daker shades indicating more geo-tagged photos (a proxy for human activity).

• Red pixels identify prime locations, ranked by total employment within the city.

• The number is the Global Cities identifier defined our data set.

All data are from 2015.  Gird sizes are data driven and depend on the density of economic activity.  More information on data in the grid shapes are available from this GitHub page.