What is this?

NS Node Atlas evaluates world cities as candidate sites for the next Network School node — a 500-resident international co-living and co-working campus, expandable to 2,000 residents on 25–60 acres. Type any city; an AI analyst scores it against a fixed framework and ranks it on the leaderboard.

How scoring works

Every location gets a score of 0–10 on each of 16 weighted criteria, judged against written anchors — a concrete description of what a 2, a 5 and an 8 look like — so scores mean the same thing across cities. Weights combine into one fitness index out of 100: Strong ≥ 72 · Viable 58–71 · Marginal < 58

Resolution is the city, never the country. Culture, warmth toward internationals, safety and cost vary enormously inside one country — Kochi and Delhi NCR are different worlds for a foreign resident despite one flag. Two criteria were added to the source framework for exactly this reason: Local Goodwill & Political Risk (does the host community and state want the project — the failure mode that hit Forest City in 2026) and Cultural Warmth & International Openness (whether foreigners can build a real life there, not just reside).

The AI analyst

Analysis runs on Claude with the full framework — criteria, weights and anchors — in its instructions. It returns a score and a one-line rationale per criterion. Nothing lands on the leaderboard automatically: you review every AI assessment, can drag any score, and only then save. Treat AI scores as a well-read first opinion, not ground truth — verify anything load-bearing before real decisions.

Same city, many names

Bangalore and Bengaluru, Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City, Cochin and Kochi — the atlas normalizes names to one canonical entry and remembers aliases, so analyzing a city under a different or local name updates the existing entry instead of creating a duplicate. If a save would collide with an existing entry, you're asked before anything is replaced.

Weights

Your data

Seeded scores are editorial baselines (early 2026). Your adjustments and analyses are stored in this browser only — nothing you do here is shared with other visitors or sent anywhere except the AI analysis request itself. Export any dossier as Markdown or the whole atlas as JSON from a location's page.

Framework: Network_School_Node_Location_Framework_500_Residents.md, extended (v2) — 14 original criteria rescaled + 2 added, city-level resolution.