Project Sentiment Analysis

My first question was to try and figure out if there was a difference in how people felt about their respective city over time, both in the short-term (day of the week) as well as by year. I used reviews from https://www.bestplaces.net from people who lived in either Chicago or Cincinnati. I did extract the date from each review and turn it into its own column so I was able to group my visualizations by day of the week and year. Unfortunately there wasn’t a ton of reviews, but I still think we are able to see if there are any overarching trends overtime, and if the sentiment for either of these cities has drastically changed over a few years, or even throughout the week.

Day of the Week

Oddly enough, it seems like people tend to be more positive about Cincinnati closer to the weekend (Thursday - Saturday) while people seem to be more positive about Chicago during the week. Although I truly do not think there is enough sentiment data within this analysis for Chicago, I potentially could see why this trend could be true given more data. Chicago is a bustling city during the week, with many unique and fun jobs to chase after, along with the beautiful lunch and dinner spots that one might hit throughout the week. As for Cincinnati, it can be pretty bland during the week (in my opinion), but the nightlife and events during the weekend are surprisingly fun and popular. Again, I wish there was more reviews to determine a definite pattern, but in my opinion I believe this pattern has a good chance of being true.

By the Year

It seems as though Chicago citizens have gotten more positive about their hometown over the years of these reviews, with a huge spike most recently in 2021. Although it doesn’t seem like Cincinnati has as much data for each year, it looks like Cincinnati definitely has a positive upward trend as well. I think this trend would ring true given more data, just because I think both cities have been growing exponentially and with that, growing the number of places and activities around the city. It’s no surprise that people love Chicago more than ever, but it says a lot about Cincinnati and it’s surprising growth in positivity. This definitely rings well for people wanting to stay/move to Cincinnati!!

After taking a brief look at what people thought about their respective cities, I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into what dominant emotions were expressed about living in Cincinnati versus living in Chicago. I used multiple Opinion & Editorial articles on living in Cincinnati and Chicago. Although reviews would have been nice to analyze, they were far and few between. I wanted to really dive into people’s overarching thoughts of each city. I used https://www.moverjunction.com/moving-guides/pros-and-cons-of-living-in-chicago, https://www.extraspace.com/blog/moving/city-guides/things-know-living-in-chicago/, https://thehonestlocal.com/living-chicago-illinois-moving/, https://retirepedia.com/17-pros-and-cons-of-living-in-cincinnati-ohio.html?gclid=CjwKCAiApuCrBhAuEiwA8VJ6JlGWXo10KiHwuTVKfuolyMKSynFKI9uMaqFZ2ABT6J0UdaPgQPKyUhoCiGMQAvD_BwE, https://movinmaker.com/living-in-cincinnati-pros-cons/. With combining all of these opinion articles, I felt as though I could get a solid feeling for what people really thought the pros and cons of living in each city were. I combined all of these articles into one data frame for easy access to the data. I then was able to create a few visualizations with the help of NRC Lexicon to display the emotions associated with each city.

Comparing Cincinnati and Chicago:

Surprisingly enough, it seems as though the most overwhelming emotion felt by citizens of both cities was positivity! This is surprising considering how different people can experience the same city, but nonetheless a great emotion to be associated with. Disgust seemed to be the least relevant emotion for both cities, which is a great thing to hear when considering whether you should move to a city or not - who would want to move to a city that evokes disgust?! Both cities also shared a similar amount of trust, joy and anticipation. Although they are somewhat similar in score, Chicago still seems to take the cake in joy and trust. I think trust is a great attribute of any city, trustworthy citizens, businesses, and friends are all extremely important in a city one would call home. The biggest difference between the city seems to be fear and anger, where Cincinnati seems to be on the lower end of both of those emotions.

The Bubble Chart:

I think this bubble chart is a very easy visualization to really see how strong each of these emotions are for each city. As you can see, the same results stand as before, but it’s much clearer how strong each sentiment is. For example, positive seems decently strong and negative sentiments seem to be even stronger in Chicago, indicating that there is probably a solid mix of good and bad in each city, with unassuming maybe a little more negative context than Cincinnati, but that could simply be because there is a higher population in Chicago, which sounds pretty realistic to me. Not everyone is going to love or hate a city, so it’s understandable why positive and negative emotions are fluctuating and honestly, they are not too different.

Lastly, I wanted to look into the significant differences in overall sentiment towards living in Cincinnati versus Chicago to really tie this sentiment analysis together. I took the same data used from question two (the opinion articles) and did a counted the amount of times each word was said, and rated those words either positive or negative. This was grouped by city, so we are able to see the number of times a word showed up in the articles, and whether it was positive or negative ( negative numbers indicating it was a negative word and positive numbers indicating it was a positive word).

The Results

It looks like the negative factor mentioned the most was crime in both Cincinnati and Chicago, with Chicago crime only being mentioned twice more than Cincinnati. Although that is definitely the most negative thing that stands out to me as a whole, they each have their own qualms. For example, it seems like Chicago is mildly associated with the words “brutal” and “expensive”. Expensive in the windy city makes a lot of sense, and after our cost of living analysis, I would say we are very much aware of that. My idea of brutal for Chicago stems from the brutal weather, so it may not be as negative as one might assume, but still not a good perception in the eyes of the citizens. On the flip side, Cincinnati is infamous for its cold temperatures and its poverty, all of which make sense in the context of Cincinnati. On a more positive note, they both seem to be associated with enjoyability, which is never a bad thing when looking for a place to live!! Cincinnati seems to be known for its variety and safety, two extremely important factors, especially when you potentially could be living by yourself. Chicago seems to be known for its pride, friendliness, and ease. All great attributes for a place to live.

Overall, the chart provides an insight into the public sentiment towards both cities, with Chicago being associated with a mix of strong negative and positive sentiments, whereas Cincinnati appears to have a softer negative sentiment but strong positive associations with affordability and being a favorite. This information could guide city branding initiatives, policy-making, and public relations efforts to enhance the positive and address the negative perceptions.