PlannovationPlanning Data Tips + Social Media Trends + Occasional Cubit Stuff

Some planners have big projects in dense urban areas, and they need a Census block map with labels. The current Cubit Planning record is a project with over 954 Census geographies (blocks, block groups, tracts, counties, places and state).  We’ve heard from you lucky researchers who have these large projects that the current Cubit Census block map is difficult to read. So we’ve changed how these Census block maps work. Try the new maps for free!

New Census Block Maps

By labeling Census Blocks as A1 instead of by their FIPS numbers, maps of dense urban areas are now easier to understand. Below the map is a key that shows Census Block A1 = FIPS number.

Note
If you have a paid Cubit account and a project that you’ve already created, you’ll need to click on the Edit Project button and then Save to refresh your maps to see the new labels and the map key.

Other Changes

• Maps are faster. We’ve changed our loading message from  “Loading… good things come to those who wait… for up to 60 seconds.” to “Loading… good things come to those who wait… for up to 30 seconds.”
• You print the map and the shapefile from the /project page instead of the data report page.

This summer we’ve been focused on improving Cubit’s maps based on feedback from our users–like the earlier Geocoder addition. Please yell at us in the comments or send me an email with how we can improve maps specifically & Cubit in general.

Got a bigger project than 954 Census geographies? We’d love for you to beat our current record holder. Not sure how many geographies are in your project area?Use Cubit for free, and it’ll tell you how many geographies are in your project area.

I just submitted this topic as a facilitated discussion proposal for the American Planning Association’s 2011 National Conference in Boston. Is this topic interesting or relevant? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Planners Using Open Source GIS Tools Know Where It’s At

Objective

• Which free or open source GIS tools are a good fit for planners?
• How are planners using free or open source GIS tools for their work?

Map Window Interface

Overview
Every planning department is looking for ways to save money these days. And some planners have seen their technology budget get cut.

Fortunately, there are a number of free and/or open source GIS tools that planners can use when they’re doing basic mapping tasks like displaying data, buffer analysis or re-projecting shapefiles. Let’s discuss which systems are easy to get started in and which are better for more advanced tasks.

For example, we’ll dive into how planners can use resources like the following to complete GIS projects.

• Google Maps and Google Earth;
• MapWindow vs. GRASS vs. gvSIG;
• FWTools;
• and more.

Audience

We’ll aim to keep the majority of the discussion accessible to planners who may have never used open source GIS. If we get enough GIS geeks in attendance, we can dive into more technical systems like Map Server and MySQL Spatial at the very end of the discussion.

I just submitted this topic as a facilitated discussion proposal for the American Planning Association’s 2011 National Conference in Boston. Is this topic interesting or relevant? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Census Data is Dead. Long Live Census Data!

Objectives

• Are planners using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) estimates to make planning decisions?
• If so, how are planners communicating ACS estimates to their community given the potential data errors and increased data complexity?

Description

Some planners say that having updated Census ACS data every year will be a God sent. Other planners say that the new ACS data are completely unusable given the small sample size, high margins of errors and problems with how the data were recorded. What do you think?

Let’s discuss if and how planners are using ACS estimates. For example, should we be using the 1 year, 3 year or 5 year estimates? How do we represent percentage change over time?

Additionally, major issues have surfaced in how the ACS records income, transportation mode and residency data. Should we take these potential problems into account when we’re using this data to make decisions? If so, how do we communicate these problems to other planners and the community?

And finally, we really, really want to hear from you if you’re using ACS estimates and you’ve found innovative ways to communicate this data that are understandable to people who don’t have a degree in statistics.

Audience

This discussion is appropriate for planners who take Census data into consideration when they’re making planning decisions. Participants will learn if other planners are using ACS data and if so, how they are communicating this data with their community and other planning professionals.

ACS Block Groups and Tracts

The information below came from the CTPP Listserve.

The Census Bureau plans to issue a Federal Register notice about the 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) tabulations in August (this month). The 5-year (2005-2009) ACS tabulations are planned to be released around December 2010.

Census 2000 tracts and block groups boundaries are used (not the Census 2010 geography). These ACS tabulations will not have the benefit of the Census 2010 results to be used for sample weighting.

The BLOCK GROUP data from the 5-year American Community Survey (2005-2009):

• will NOT be available from American Fact Finder;
• may not be available in the usual “data download” area; and
• may be restricted to Summary File download and also Data Ferrett.

Ken Hodges of Nielsen said he did not understand why the Census Bureu was applying different data access rules to block group data, when by his estimation, there were many more towns that are smaller than the average block group, and these data access limitations were not being applied to them. The Census Bureau says that block group data should ONLY be used when used to build up larger geographic areas, because the Margins of Error are too large otherwise.

We, the transportation community [CTPP], should be ready to do some small area (tract) analysis when these American Community Survey data are released and then make recommendations as to whether or not to use these 5-year small area tabulations. We know that sub-county estimates, e.g. place and PUMA estimates, have been problematic in some areas.

The Census Bureau is working on web-based tutorials to help data users understand ACS and multiple years of data accumulation and reporting and hopes that they will have materials available in September.

Have you heard of any other interesting ACS developments? If so, please leave a comment.

Processing the American Community Survey

I’ve finally found 3 reasons that actually make sense as to why the American Community Survey (ACS) is less reliable than the Census 2000 Long Form. The majority of information below comes from the CTPP Listserve (attributed to Freddie Navarro) and the Census Bureau’s Brian McKenzie’s presentation here.

Why the ACS is Less Reliable Than the Census 2000 Long Form

1. When the American Community Survey was in the test period, the mail-back + CATI “cooperation rate” was estimated to be about 78%. This percentage was based on Census 2000 data. But the actual ACS cooperation rate has been closer to 50%.
2. The lack of tract-level controls (population totals by age/sex/race) has resulted in an increase of 15-25% in the standard errors.
3. The ACS 5 year estimates will include survey responses from 11 million households over 5 years. The Census 2000 Long Form included responses from 18 million households in 1 year. Fewer data points gathered over a longer period of time result in more errors.

In the most current results show that the Coefficient of Variation (CV) for the ACS is 75% higher than the CV from the Census 2000 Long Form. The original estimate was that the ACS CV would be about 33% higher.

Right now, you can get ACS data for your projects in seconds with the Free Poverty Report beta. When the ACS 5 year estimates come out in December, this data will be part of the Cubit system.

Do you know of any other statistical reasons why the ACS data is less reliable than the Census 2000 Long Form data? How will having less reliable demographic data affect you and your projects?