Convention City Almanac#
Can you make art here? Can you rehearse? Can you prototype a robot? Can you hold a community forum for 200 people at an affordable rate?
The CommonScore measures city-wide participation space across 16 dimensions — not what you can consume, but what you can do. 32 cities scored. Singapore leads (44). No city has broken 50.
The Leaderboard#
| City | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore | 44 | Government-engineered participation at every level |
| 2 | London | 38 | City Lit, Parkrun, Borough Market, fringe theater |
| 3 | Mexico City | 38 | 1,400 tianguis, 250+ PILARES, UNAM |
| 4 | New York | 38 | Three library systems, CUNY, off-off-Broadway |
| … | |||
| 20 | Seattle | 27 | Strong base, no commons building |
| … | |||
| 32 | Nashville | 14 | Music only |
Key Findings#
Civic infrastructure is the strongest predictor. In 28 of 32 cities, Civic & Community is the top or second dimension. Libraries with meeting rooms and maker spaces are the closest existing model to a commons. More →
Convention center size doesn’t predict score. McCormick Place (2.6M sq ft) scores 26. Oodi (185K sq ft, a library) helps Helsinki score 30.
No city has broken 50. Singapore’s government-engineered model is the only one to break 40. The gap between 44 and 100 is where the commons argument lives.
What’s Here#
Leaderboard — 32 cities ranked by CommonScore
CommonScore — The methodology: 16 dimensions, weights, formula, interpretation
Findings — What the data reveals: patterns, models, gaps
Cities — Per-city profiles with convention center history, finance, governance, and full 16-dimension scoring tables
This almanac supports two other sites:
- Convention City Dispatch — journalism about what’s happening now
- Seattle Commons — the argument for what we should do
The almanac is the reference layer underneath both.
Want to contribute? See the contributor guide.