About
Editorial standards
Credibility is the product. This page is the contract with the reader.
Source selection
Tier 1 primary sources come first: statistical agencies, housing ministries, central banks, census organizations, official datasets, legislation, and regulators. Tier 2 is academic and research institutions. Tier 3 is reputable journalism, used to identify developments and then traced, where possible, to the original source.
Primary versus secondary
Several websites repeating a number is not independent verification if they all point at the same dataset. We try to store the original source as the primary citation and treat others as corroboration or as reporting.
Citation standards
Inline markers such as [1] should lead to a source record with organization, title, date, URL, access date, type, and what the source supports. Sources are reused across the site rather than copied into each article as a new database row.
Data verification
A publishable statistic needs a value, unit, geography, period, source, dataset where applicable, URL, and retrieval date. Demo or interface-test values must be marked Demo Data. They must never appear as facts.
Corrections and updates
When a fact is wrong, it will be corrected in place with an updated date. Interpretations can change as evidence changes; that is an update, not a silent rewrite of history. Substantial corrections should be noted on the article.
Commentary versus fact
News summaries
News items are original short summaries plus a “why it matters” note, with a prominent link to the publisher. We do not republish other outlets' article bodies.
Future projections
Scenarios state assumptions, time period, methodology, variables, and uncertainty. They are not forecasts dressed as facts.
AI usage
AI may help classify, draft structure, or surface candidate sources. AI must not automatically publish unverified news or statistics as fact. The intended ingestion path is discover → collect → classify → check source → summarize → human review → publish.
Conflicts of interest
Stephen S. Jemal is associated with JemRock Organization and BUILT. When content discusses those entities, factory-built housing systems they promote, or other solutions in which he has a financial or organizational interest, the relationship is disclosed in the piece. The Housing Future Project should earn trust through that transparency, not by hiding the operator behind a research voice.