Dillon Mahmoudi's blog

A recent study by real estate consultants titled "Survey Reveals People Still Want to Own a Home" finds that "people" still want to own homes. An economist pointed out to me that the study should be titled "Startling result: Survey [of people touring new homes] reveals that people [touring new homes] still want to own a home." Woops.

I can't say that I'm for or against home ownership. It is clear, however, that when conservative Ross Douthat calls out for the end of the "McMansion" subsidy, citing the fact that the rich are defaulting on home loans at twice the rate the rest of Americans are, something has gone awry. The fact that it was the rich that are defaulting might explain the political traction and resolution behind the recently successful mortage settlement. Ross Douthat said it best when he said "they [the rich] know how to game the system."

This is the beginning of a blog where ideas matter, debate is encouraged, and others interested in making cities better are encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions. I will showcase noteworthy examples of economics, urbanism, and technology through both my work and the work of others.

KATU's John Tierney interviewed Eric and I about the map. Read more on the KATU blog. Favorite quote from the article:

The pair threw all this data into a formula and the badass-ness scale was born. The top scorers fall into the “hella badass” category and the lowest scorers fall into the “Vancouver-ish” category (sorry, Vancouver).

The comments on the KATU blog are also worth a read.

CEOs for Cities picked up Badassness Map and shared a link to the presentation video given in our GIS class taught at Portland State.

A goup of Portlanders have posted this video in response to the city's famed "20 Minute Neighborhood" map with a more nuanced version of why they have chosen to live and work in the "mecca of badass-ness."

See it on CEOs for Cities here.