A place-data research institute
155 million data points across 32,000 towns, 3,121 counties, 1,199 regions, and all 50 states — drawn entirely from federal sources. Every fact cited; every methodology published.
155 million rows across 35 federal data sources, refreshed on each source's own cadence. Every metric you see on a place page links to its methodology.
Data points
155M
rows in the warehouse
Sources
35
federal & public-domain datasets
Places
32,333
Census places (cities/towns/CDPs)
ZIP codes
33,791
every US ZCTA covered
Hand-curated examples across geography, size, and character. Each profile draws from every relevant source — climate, economy, demographics, migration, civic life.
Finger Lakes village
Penn Yan
NY ·
The slow remaking of a lake town: incomes up 16×, climate +2.0°F since 1900.
Mountain West boomtown
Bozeman
MT ·
+3.9°F per century warming; median home value $875k; the West's fastest gentrifier.
Comeback city
Detroit
MI ·
Median home value $121k — affordable Midwest reset on a 170,000-person scale.
Cape Cod tip
Provincetown
MA ·
Median home $977k for a 5,000-person town — the Outer Cape's outlier.
Ski-resort enclave
Aspen
CO ·
Median home $3.4M, years-to-own 35 — the textbook luxury-housing crisis.
Bay Area university city
Berkeley
CA ·
Median home $1.2M; one of the most-educated populations in the country.
Finger Lakes wine country
Watkins Glen
NY ·
A 4,500-person village on Seneca Lake with a NASCAR track and a wine industry.
Blue Ridge mountain city
Asheville
NC ·
Climate-refuge candidate: +3.5°F since 1900 but cooler than peers; median home $524k.
Programmatic rankings driven by the same warehouse. Every list page top citation links to the methodology that defines the metric.
Affordability
Most affordable mid-sized towns
Where the median home costs less than 2× household income.
Climate
Fastest-warming places
Counties warming faster than 4°F per century since 1970.
Economy
Most economically diverse cities
Lowest industry Herfindahl scores — no single dominant sector.
Migration
Where wealthy movers are landing
Counties with the highest in-mover to out-mover AGI ratio.
Demographics
Youngest small towns
Towns under 25,000 with median age under 35.
Civic life
Most-engaged civic communities
Highest voter turnout + nonprofit density per capita.
Quarterly and annual press-quotable indices ranking every county on the four dimensions that matter most.
Quarterly
Local Affordability Index
How affordable is the housing in every county, given local incomes? Combines home-price-to-income, rent burden, and recent appreciation.
Drawing on ACS 5-yr + ZHVI + FHFA HPI
Annual
Climate Velocity Index
How fast is the climate changing where you live? Composite of warming-since-1970, storm event density, and water stress.
Drawing on NOAA nClimDiv + Storm Events
Annual
Migration Wealth Velocity
Is your county gaining or losing wealth through migration? AGI per inmover vs. AGI per outmover.
Drawing on IRS SOI Migration
Annual
Economic Diversification Index
How concentrated is the local economy? Inverse Herfindahl across 7-NAICS sectors.
Drawing on Census County Business Patterns
Most place-data sites publish thin recycled content and proprietary scoring with no methodology. Commerce Institute is the opposite. Every fact links to a methodology page that defines it; every methodology page links to the source data and the SQL or Python that computes it; every dataset is versioned and downloadable. The full warehouse is queryable.
Census ACS, BEA Personal Income, BLS LAUS, NOAA NCEI, FHFA, IRS Migration, NHTSA FARS, and 28 more — every value traces back to a primary federal dataset.
For every computed metric, a methodology page defines the formula, identifies the source data, and links to the SQL that produces it. Replication packages on GitHub.
If a field can't be sourced, it doesn't render. No invented mayors, no made-up newspapers of record. Every claim is queryable.