Examples: Atlas Growth Intelligence

Atlas Growth Intelligence: examples

These are live outputs from release 0.17.0 (growth_v1), run on 9 October 2026. Sources: Emergence Index 20261007-v1, ZORI to August 2026, FHFA HPI 2025 and county series to 2025. The numbers will change when those releases change; the reasoning should not.

1. "What growth signals exist around Garden City?" (ZIP 11530)

Call area_change(action="growth_profile", zipcode="11530"), then area_change(action="growth_explain", zipcode="11530", topic="values_up_jobs_down").

Verdict. Garden City is a stable, mature, affluent suburb. Residents, households and real income show no significant change. Home prices are rising and accelerating while jobs located in the ZIP fell. Rents have too little history to read.

skill: urban-growth-signals
location: Garden City, NY
geography: ZIP 11530 (Census ZCTA 11530, same-code proxy)
classification:
  growth_state: stable
  momentum: insufficient_evidence       # one local acceleration series (home prices); rents too short
  growth_character: Stable mature affluent suburb
  emergence_stage: INSUFFICIENT_EVIDENCE # emergence index lacks the housing-pressure pillar here
signals:
  - name: Home prices rising and accelerating
    type: growth
    direction: positive
    evidence: [real home-price growth +5.3%/yr 2022-25 vs -1.0%/yr 2019-22 (FHFA ZIP5, CPI-adjusted; 62nd metro percentile)]
    status: supported
  - name: Values up, jobs down
    type: anomaly
    direction: mixed
    evidence: [home prices +5.3%/yr, jobs located here -7.1% (LODES 2019 to 2023)]
    status: supported          # county private employment grew 0.9%/yr, so this is local, not a county-wide loss
  - name: Residents and income
    type: growth
    direction: flat
    evidence: [population -1.8%, households +0.1%, real median income +10.3% - all inside ACS margins]
    status: not_significant
  - name: Share of households above $200k (2024 dollars)
    type: structural_transition
    direction: flat
    evidence: [+2.5 pp, not significant. The nominal $200k share rose 13.6 pp, but most of that is inflation]
    status: not_significant
  - name: Remote work
    type: structural_transition
    direction: positive
    evidence: [work-from-home share +21.2 pp]
    status: national_pattern     # reported; never makes a place "transforming"
confidence: strong coverage (5 of 6 dimensions); descriptive only, not backtested
gaps: [rent change (ZORI starts 2026-06, three months), night lights, restaurants and bars (suppressed), mobility]

Commercial change is flat. Consumer-facing establishments fell 2.6% (ZBP 2019 to 2023), inside the 3% band. Grocery and specialty food rose 16.7% (88th metro percentile).

Lesson. Do not read "affluence rising" from a fixed nominal income bracket. Between 2015–19 and 2020–24, a $200,000 line fell about 19% in real terms.

2. "Is Bushwick emerging?" (ZIP 11237)

Call area_change(action="emergence", zipcode="11237"), then growth_profile for the evidence.

Verdict. Yes, on the evidence. The Emergence Index places it in ACTIVE_EMERGENCE (98th percentile in its metro, confidence 90). Five independent dimensions converge.

People: households +6.9% while population fell 7.2% (households_up_population_down: smaller households).
Income and education: real median income +29.9% (97th metro percentile); bachelor's-plus share +12.7 pp; poverty share −9.1 pp; share above $200k (2024 dollars) +2.8 pp. All significant.
Housing: rents +12.2% over 36 months and +5.8% year on year, 1.6 pp above the metro median. Rent YoY is 2.4 pp faster than a year earlier. Housing units +4.6%.
Commercial and jobs: consumer establishments +13.1% (94th metro percentile), cafés and snack places +64%, jobs located here +56.8% (LODES 2019 to 2023).
Momentum: reported as insufficient_evidence. Only one local acceleration series exists (rent); FHFA has no ZIP home-price index here.
Caveats:
- in-movers cannot be told from existing residents;
- ZBP counts employer establishments only;
- the emergence stage is descriptive and uncalibrated.

3. "Find emerging ZIPs in New York State"

Call area_change(action="emergence", state="NY", limit=10).

This reads the published index; nothing is recomputed. Report each result's stage, drivers and confidence, and look for outliers before ranking.

11968 Southampton ranks first (ACCELERATING_EMERGENCE), with housing pressure at 98.8. Its ZORI is $40,940 a month, up 35.9% in a year and 61.9% in 36 months. That is a seasonal resort rental market, so check it before calling it neighbourhood change.
The rest of the list: 11221 Bushwick/Bed-Stuy, 12508 Beacon and 11237 are ACTIVE_EMERGENCE; 11101 Long Island City and 11222 Greenpoint are DEVELOPMENT_LED_EMERGENCE.

4. "Compare Garden City, Bushwick and a stable area"

Call area_change(action="growth_compare", zipcodes=["11530", "11237", "07701"]).

07701 (Red Bank, NJ) was chosen by rule. It is the only New York-metro ZCTA that is eligible, has confidence ≥80, and has all three emergence pillars between the 40th and 60th peer percentiles.

ZIP	Growth state	Character	Emergence stage	Positive dimensions	Divergence
11530	stable	Stable mature affluent suburb	INSUFFICIENT_EVIDENCE	housing	values up, jobs down
11237	growing	Affluence-led established dense urban neighbourhood	ACTIVE_EMERGENCE	demographic, economic, housing, commercial, urban fabric	households up, population down
07701	growing	Growing established suburb	STABLE_OR_MIXED	demographic, housing	none

Red Bank grows in absolute terms: households +7.6%, rents +13.6% over 36 months, home prices +5.8%/yr real. It grows in line with its peers, which is why its emergence stage is stable while its growth state is "growing". Growth state is absolute; emergence is relative to peers. Its momentum is mixed: home prices accelerating, rents decelerating.

5. "Growth around Roosevelt Field" (10-minute drive catchment)

Call area_change(action="growth_profile", latitude=40.7382, longitude=-73.6128, mode="drive", minutes=10).

Verdict. The catchment is growing, established, affluent and suburban, with accelerating momentum: two of three local acceleration series point up. It holds 125,702 residents across 12 ZCTAs, all in Nassau County.

Population and income: population +3.5% and real median income +18.2% (tract-weighted ACS).
Home prices: +4.4%/yr real, 2.2 pp/yr faster than 2019–22 (FHFA tract).
Jobs located here: −0.2%/yr 2019–23, but 0.8 pp/yr better than 2016–19 (LODES).
Night lights: +1.8%/yr, slowing.
Renter share: −3.8 pp. This gives tenure_shift_to_owning with significance: not_tested. Tract-weighted catchment values carry no margin of error, so call it a direction, not a significant shift.
Emergence mix by residents: 81.8% live in ZCTAs the index cannot stage, 16.5% in MATURE_AFFLUENT, 1.5% ineligible.
ZIP or catchment? Use ZIPs for peer percentiles and significance tests. Use the catchment for the trade area a store draws on. growth_compare compares ZIPs only.