Identifying an appreciating market?

[Chris Gordon]

Growing up in Philadelphia I watched certain sections of "downtown" and adjacent blue-collar areas become gentrified, fashionable, and very expensive.

It seems to me that this is a constantly occurring phenomena of revitalization. Somewhere right now is an area you can buy for 100K which in 10 years will be worth 450K in today's dollars. I'm sure all these areas have things in common, or had certain features that primed them for this to occur.

Anyone know of any work that's been done on this, or have personal ways of spotting this?