Deep Dives
The interactive features and essays behind the rankings. Some of the thinking becomes software; some becomes writing.
Features
Interactive pieces you can explore on the site.
The champions the map forgot: dominant clubs erased when the metro behind them was outgrown by the modern league.
Every MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL team, every big-five European club and every IPL franchise on one weekly scale since 1946: how far each stands above its own league's field, with the club season hub setting the football order.
Each country's national team ranked within its sport, all on one scale since 1946: men's and women's football, basketball, rugby union, cricket, ice hockey, handball, volleyball, baseball and athletics, so any two countries, sports or decades read the same way.
Every English top-flight match since 1888 and every NFL game since 1920, scored against the chance it was given beforehand. Home advantage has collapsed in both sports and neither league has ever said so.
Which fanbases suffer most: droughts, lost finals, relegation and playoff exile, scored by one published formula across football, the US majors, college and nations.
The best game in ten sports, one board each, ranked by Game Score, plus every Stanley Cup presentation game.
Franchise values across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and global soccer, on one sortable board.
Hundreds of teams across football, the US majors, college, women's sports and world leagues, ranked by the attention they draw and set beside what they are worth.
One crest per metro: the club whose disappearance would change what the metro is, not the one with the most trophies.
A taxonomy of the world's dense, historic, walkable, elite residential neighborhoods. A small qualifying set out of the full metro corpus.
The producer-driven adult-pop catalog of 1974 to 1989, mapped: six cities and two islands that yacht rock flattened into a beach trope.
Writing
Notes, essays, and field reports on Substack.
- Oct 2026 · SubstackThe Cousteau Line
Mapping the Atlantic divide between American sport and European football, and the two new instruments I built to measure it
- Sep 2026 · SubstackFour seasons, one ledger
The NFL starts tonight.
- Jul 2026 · SubstackThe Nowhere 100
Who Actually Runs the World, and Where That Power Sits
- Jun 2026 · SubstackEvery Champion Has a Hometown
What we have built since mid-June: a full sports atlas, mapped to the metros that host it.
- Jun 2026 · SubstackThe Velvet Rock Manifesto
The Architecture of Universal Order, and the Philosophy Beneath the Map
- Jun 2026 · SubstackIntroducing Zone Zero: A Sports Club for the Center of the Network
Citizen of Nowhere now has a sports identity. It belongs to the network, not the nation, and it begins by taking a name back.
- Jun 2026 · SubstackEvery Metro Keeps Score: The Sports Layer Is Now Live
From one essay about which team owns a Metro’s identity to a full atlas of who plays where, who won, and who left.
- May 2026 · SubstackOne Week, Two Cities, No Contest
Arsenal are Premier League champions. The Knicks are one win from the Finals. The dataset has always known why both cities deserve this moment.
- May 2026 · SubstackThe Sovereign City Index
Ranking the world’s planned cities by the gap between what was announced and what is actually on the ground.
- May 2026 · SubstackGreying Power: When Demographic Decline Buys Stability
A taxonomy of the cities that stopped growing and started getting a few things right.
- May 2026 · SubstackReading the Oxford Economics Global Cities Index Against Our Own
Where the rigorous read agrees with us, and where it doesn't.
- May 2026 · SubstackThe 85% Illusion: When Cities Build Skylines Instead of Economies
Walk through Marylebone in London or the Upper West Side in Manhattan.
- May 2026 · SubstackCompany Towns of the Mind: The Academic Gravity Wells
What the data reveals about the cities built entirely around intellectual capital
- Apr 2026 · SubstackThe Team That Wins the City
One crest per city. Across 200+ metros, the team that wins the civic identity contest is rarely the one with the most trophies. It's the one whose disappearance would change what the city is.
- Apr 2026 · SubstackThe Last of the Marylebones
A taxonomy of the world's great dense, historic, walkable neighborhoods. Out of 4,200+ metros, only a few still clear the bar.
- Apr 2026 · SubstackThe Global Metro Power Rankings Site Is Live
Following up on the first post: the full dataset is now browsable. 4,200+ metros, 237 countries, 16 dimensions, 70,000+ individually verified parameters. Three years of hand-curation, now searchable.
- Apr 2026 · SubstackThe Global Metro Power Rankings
Measuring What Makes a City Matter
- Sep 2025 · SubstackSports Roundup - 8 September 2025
In this episode of Ashwin and Sopan's Sports Roundup, the hosts discuss a variety of recent sports events, including the ongoing European football qualifying matches, the start of the NFL season, cricket tournaments, and