M&Ms for Real Estate

Meaningful Metrics: what collectibles and video games taught me about property analysis

Try the DEV Score

In real estate development, reading a neighborhood is a baseline skill. A drive through tells you whether a block has energy or whether it is dead. Independent storefronts, a park across the street, a bus stop on the corner. Or: strip mall, gas station, chain pharmacy, empty lots.

Existing tools measure parts of this. Walk Score handles walkability. Crime scores handle crime. School ratings handle schools. Demographic data handles income and population. These work for what they measure.

The DEV Score adds something different. It measures the quality, diversity, and character of the full amenity ecosystem surrounding a commercial property. It organizes every Point of Interest (POI) within 3 distance rings into 18 categories (15 positive, 3 negative), applies a set of modifiers, and produces a meaningful metric that grades from Raw to Pristine. For someone without experience in development, it makes a complex set of neighborhood dynamics legible in 1 grade. For a professional, it surfaces dimensions that traditional metrics miss: cultural infrastructure, independent business character, ecosystem synergy, the cost of absence.¹

The methodology draws from 3 sources: an urban planning framework, 34 years of spatial scoring design from a video game, and a grading language borrowed from sports cards and collectibles. The computation scales with AI. The dataset grows over time. The grading adapts.²

Where the framework comes from

Meaningful Oriented Development

The DEV Score evolved out of a planning framework called Meaningful Oriented Development, or MOD, that I am working on in Shtetl Urbanism. MOD extends existing urbanism frameworks (transit-oriented development, the 15-minute city) by encouraging diverse cultural, creative, and communal uses at every neighborhood scale. A neighborhood with housing, retail, and transit is functional. A neighborhood with those plus culture, worship, education, healthcare, and green space is a community. That distinction is what "meaningful" means here.³

Some core MOD principles became structural features of the DEV Score:

Scales of Modality. MOD defines distance tiers for reaching cultural infrastructure: a 5-minute walk, a 15-minute walk, a scooter or bike ride, a drive, and long-form travel. The DEV Score's 3-ring model maps onto the first 3 scales. Ring 1 at 1,400 ft is the 5-minute walk. Ring 2 at 4,000 ft covers the scooter, bike, and short drive range. Ring 3 at 15,000 ft is the drive and public transit range. The ring boundaries correspond to the distances at which how you access amenities fundamentally changes.

Anti-monoculture. No single use should dominate. The DEV Score enforces this with a missing penalty and an 18-category structure. A property surrounded by 50 restaurants and nothing else gets penalized for what is missing, regardless of how high the count is.

Walking-distance primacy. MOD asks: if you could not drive, would your neighborhood still sustain meaningful community life? The DEV Score weights Ring 1 (walking distance) at 1.0, Ring 2 at 0.5, and Ring 3 at 0.15. A property that works at walking distance will score well regardless of what exists farther out.⁴

The container is not the community. Good physical form is necessary, not sufficient. What fills the container determines meaning. The DEV Score reflects this across the entire scoring pipeline: what categories are present, what is missing, what is independent versus chain, and how different uses interact through synergy. The score measures the content, not just the container.

Incentives over mandates. MOD favors bonuses and incentives over regulatory punishment. The DEV Score mirrors this: the system is built around additive reward. Independent businesses earn a 1.5x multiplier, synergy pairs reward co-presence, and the missing penalty identifies gaps rather than punishing presence. The Architecture emphasizes what good neighborhoods have, not what bad neighborhoods lack.

Learning from Civilization

Sid Meier's Civilization has been iterating on spatial scoring for 34 years across 7 editions (1991 to 2025). The designers spent 3 decades solving the same problem the DEV Score faces: how to evaluate the quality of a location based on what surrounds it.⁵

"Simple plus simple equals complex." Sid Meier, Memoir!, 2020

Individual mechanics should be transparent. Depth emerges from interactions, not individual complexity. Each step in the DEV Score pipeline is simple on its own. The depth comes from utilizing current technology to calculate across an ever-growing dataset. The parameters are set. The aggregation scales.

Incentives over penalties. Corruption mechanics in Civilization III were universally hated. Adjacency bonuses in Civilization VI were celebrated. Same mechanical purpose, different structure. The DEV Score follows the reward path.⁶

Graduated bonuses. Civilization VI used 3 tiers: major (+2), standard (+1), minor (+0.5). The DEV Score's synergy system uses the same 3-tier structure: Major (+20%), Standard (+15%), Minor (+10%). Most properties fall on a spectrum, not into a binary.

Asymmetric adjacency. In Civilization VI, different districts benefit from different terrain. No single "best position" exists. The DEV Score reflects this: different categories have different rules. Some are eligible for the chain/independent split. Others are exempt. Different neighborhoods score well through different pathways.

Absence is information. In Civilization, leaving a tile empty has consequences. The missing penalty operationalizes this: the absence of an entire category from a ring is a measurable deficit.

Academic validation

The design came first, from MOD principles and Civilization mechanics. The academic literature confirmed it after the fact. Pivo and Fisher (2011) established that a 10-point Walk Score increase corresponds to a 1-9% property value premium across more than 4,200 properties. Orr and Stewart (2022) found that independent-heavy districts command higher retail rents than chain-dominated ones, validating the chain/independent split as an economic signal. Smart Growth America (2023) reported that walkable urban places occupy just 1.2% of metro land area in the 35 largest U.S. metros while generating 19.1% of GDP, reflecting strong market concentration of commercial activity in walkable areas.⁷

How the score works

A grading system inspired by collectibles

The grading language borrows from sports card and collectibles grading, where a universal condition scale allows quick comparison across different items. A high-graded card immediately communicates something: verified condition, relative rarity within its population. Still, within each grade there is variation. Human review introduces tolerances, different grading companies apply different standards, and every card within a grade still has a range of acceptances. The grade is a tool to sort through noise. It gives you a fast first pass so you know where to focus deeper analysis.⁸

Each tier is named for a gemstone. The idea: a stone starts in raw form and through work, refinement, and cutting, becomes something pristine with higher value. 6 tiers, percentile-based.

Raw (Jasper). Bottom 15%. The raw form. Functionally sparse amenity environment. May show only a handful of positive categories in the walking ring. Higher risk, but the breakdown shows where specific categories are absent, which points to where opportunity might focus.⁹

Good (Agate). P15 to P30. The stone has been shaped. Starts to show minimum elements across several positive categories, though coverage is still thin and concentrated in 1 or 2 rings.¹⁰

Near Mint (Amethyst). P30 to P50. Approaching strong. A meaningful mix is beginning to form, with most positive categories represented across at least 2 rings.¹¹

Mint (Turquoise). P50 to P70. Solid. A meaningful mix of amenities within reach. Multiple synergy pairs likely active. Independent businesses present in eligible categories.¹²

Gem Mint (Sapphire). P70 to P90. Excellent. Dense, walkable, diverse. Strong representation across most categories with synergy boosts compounding.¹³

Pristine (Emerald). Top 10%. Fully refined. Dense with culture, food, transit, retail, green space, and healthcare within walking distance. Strong independent representation and multiple synergy pairs active.¹⁴

Thresholds are percentile-based. They recalibrate as the dataset grows. The percentile allocations stay fixed. The score values that define each tier shift.

The formula

3 concentric rings, each scored independently, then weighted and summed. Ring 1 (0 to 1,400 ft): walking distance, weight 1.0. Ring 2 (1,400 to 4,000 ft): 15-minute walk, neighborhood scale, weight 0.5. Ring 3 (4,000 to 15,000 ft): scooter, bike, sub-regional access, weight 0.15. Ring 3 may not affect daily life, but it shapes the week. Anything beyond Ring 3 operates at too large a scale for property-level comparison.

The 18 categories

Every POI within the scoring radius gets classified into 1 of 18 categories: 15 positive and 3 negative. The 15 positives group into 8 parent groups. 6 categories are eligible for the chain/independent split (C/I). 9 are exempt (all POIs scored at 1.0).

¹ C/I = chain/independent split applies (chain 0.5, independent 1.5)

How each ring is scored

Step 1: Classify and cap. Each POI maps to 1 of the 18 categories. Within each category, POIs group by sub-type (food vs. beverage within F&B, specialty vs. general within Retail). Only the closest 10 per sub-group are kept. This prevents any single sub-type from overwhelming the score.

Step 2: Amplification of Intensity (AoI). This is where the modifiers apply. For eligible categories, each POI in the capped pool receives an ownership multiplier: chain (0.5) or independent (1.5). Category scores are computed as the average of all ownership-adjusted POI values. Then, in Ring 1, synergy boosts apply: when 2 parent groups are both present, all categories in both groups receive a percentage boost. 14 synergy pairs across 3 tiers. Boosts stack.¹⁵

Step 3: Negatives and missing penalty. Negative POIs group into 3 sub-categories. Severity = count / 10, capped at 1.0. Subtracted from positives. Then: each absent positive category costs -0.25. No floor. A desolate ring can go below 0.

The 500-property study

500 commercial properties across all 50 states. 250 pre-classified as exemplary (strong retail performance, high occupancy, desirable tenants) and 250 as underperforming (high vacancy, weak tenants, declining trade area). Pre-classification used independent commercial data (vacancy rates, tenant quality, rent/ft², trade area demographics) before any DEV scoring. The DEV Score had no access to that data. It independently reproduced the classification using only POI data.¹⁶

Exemplary mean: 21.54. Underperforming mean: 11.46. Gap: 10.08 points. Ratio: 1.88:1.

Score range: -2.56 to 31.98.

At an optimal threshold of 17, the score correctly classifies 89.2% of all 500 properties. The dataset grows over time. Thresholds recalibrate. The formula is fixed. The grading adapts.¹⁷

What the DEV Score is

A meaningful metric for analyzing real estate. It measures what surrounds a property: the diversity, density, quality, and character of the full amenity ecosystem within reach, weighted by distance and adjusted for chain/independent character. It does not measure the property itself. It tells you nothing about the building, the lease, the rent, or the price. It measures whether the location is meaningful.

For someone without experience in development, it puts a complex set of neighborhood dynamics into 1 grade that is immediately legible. For a professional, it surfaces dimensions that traditional metrics miss: cultural infrastructure, independent business character, ecosystem synergy, the penalty of absence. The dataset grows. The grading adapts. Future versions can expand or contract categories for different markets. The methodology is scalable by design.

Try the DEV Score

Jamie Moshe Straz, AIA is the Principal at Studio 3 in Miami Beach. The DEV Score was developed as part of Studio 3's ongoing research projects. The 500-property calibration study was completed in March 2026.

Notes

¹ Deal Estate Valuation. "Development" as in real estate development potential. "Deal" as in what every investor is looking for.

² POI = Point of Interest. Any business, institution, or public space. A restaurant is a POI. A bus stop is a POI. A park is a POI. The DEV Score classifies approximately 100 to 300 POIs per property.

³ MOD extends transit-oriented development (TOD) and the 15-minute city. TOD focuses on transit access. The 15-minute city focuses on daily services within a time-distance radius. MOD adds the requirement that cultural programming, worship, education, and community gathering be present at the same scales.

⁴ The techum Shabbat, a concept from Jewish law defining the maximum walkable range on Shabbos (approximately 3,158 ft from the settlement boundary), falls almost exactly between the 5-minute walk and the 15-minute city radius. The idea: everything needed for daily community life should be reachable on foot. A spatial law codified 2,000 years ago converges with contemporary urbanism research independently.

⁵ Full research documented in "The Design Evolution of Sid Meier's Civilization: Spatial Placement, Adjacency Systems, and Principles for Spatial Scoring" (Studio 3, 2025-2026), using Sid Meier's 2020 memoir Memoir!: A Video Game Designer's Life in 51½ Chapters (amzn.to/47MBjQk) as a primary source.

⁶ Corruption in Civilization III reduced city yields based on distance from the capital. Players found it punishing and opaque. Civilization VI replaced it with adjacency bonuses: reward for good placement rather than punishment for bad.

⁷ Pivo & Fisher, "The Walkability Premium in Commercial Real Estate Investments," Real Estate Economics 39:2 (2011). Orr & Stewart, "Ownership Diversity and Retail Rents," Journal of Real Estate Research (2022). Smart Growth America, "Foot Traffic Ahead" (2023).

⁸ PSA, BGS, and SGC are the dominant grading companies in the sports card market. Each uses its own scale and standards. A high grade communicates top condition at a glance. The range within each grade still contains variation. The grade democratizes first-pass analysis.

⁹ Jasper: microcrystalline quartz (SiO₂). Multicolored: red, green, yellow, brown. Found on the ground in the Negev desert. $1-5/ct. Used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia for seals and amulets. Same mineral family as agate and amethyst.

¹⁰ Agate: banded chalcedony. Gray, white, brown banding. $1-10/ct. The most common material for ancient Near Eastern cylinder seals. Named for the Achates River in Sicily.

¹¹ Amethyst: macrocrystalline quartz, purple from iron impurities and natural irradiation. $5-50/ct. The biggest value collapse in gem history: classed with ruby and emerald by the Greeks and Egyptians, then Brazilian deposits in the 18th-19th centuries dropped it from royal tier to gift shop tier in 200 years. Hebrew achlamah likely from chalom (dream). Greek amethystos = "not intoxicated."

¹² Turquoise: hydrated copper aluminum phosphate. Sky blue to blue-green. $1K-10K/ct for top Persian grade. One of the earliest mined gems in history. Sinai mines active from approximately 3000 BCE under Egyptian control.

¹³ Sapphire: corundum. Deep blue. $5K-50K/ct for Kashmir grade. In the ancient world, sappheiros seemingly referred to lapis lazuli, which was traded weight-for-weight with gold in Mesopotamia. Mohs hardness 9: second only to diamond.

¹⁴ Emerald: beryl, colored green by chromium. $10K-100K/ct for Colombian Muzo mine grade. Egyptian mines at Wadi Sikait active from approximately 1500 BCE. Inclusions are expected and called jardin (garden).

¹⁵ Chain classification uses the OpenStreetMap Name Suggestion Index (NSI), an open-source brand database, combined with per-property duplicate detection. The 500-property calibration study added multi-location detection across the full dataset. The economic signal is validated by Orr & Stewart (2022): independent-heavy districts command higher retail rents.

¹⁶ Pre-classification independence is the validation. The DEV Score reproduced commercial performance classifications using only POI data.

¹⁷ 89.2% overall accuracy at threshold 17. Exemplary correct: 86.8%. Underperforming correct: 91.6%. The score is slightly better at identifying weak locations, which is arguably the more useful direction for screening possibly.