The city is a dataset.
Neil Madison studies how Portland's neighborhoods, transit, and housing markets move — and what the numbers quietly say about who they leave behind.
Currently mapping rent-to-income shifts across the inner eastside, 2015–2025.
Where the work concentrates
01 / focusHousing & rent
How supply, zoning, and lending shape what a neighborhood can actually afford.
Transit & land value
Where new transit lines quietly lift — and displace — the value of adjacent land.
Regional labor
Wages, commuting, and the uneven geography of who gets to work in this city.
Recent writing
02 / writingAn economist who reads the city on foot
Neil Madison has spent fourteen years turning Portland's planning files, tax rolls, and transit ridership into plain, usable analysis. He works with city bureaus, transit agencies, and neighborhood coalitions — the kind of work that ends up in a metro report or a neighborhood meeting, not a paywall.
Neil Madison · Portland, OR
"The numbers are never neutral. Someone decided what to measure."
Portland Monthly, 2024
Have a dataset, or a question?
Open to research commissions, advisory work, and speaking with planning and transit teams across the Pacific Northwest.