Plannovation

Improved Census Blocks Maps for Dense Urban Areas

Kristen Carney — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:48:46 +0000

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.

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

Kristen Carney — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:18:44 +0000

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.

Census Data is Dead. Long Live Census Data!

Kristen Carney — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:28:16 +0000

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.

$10 Unlimited Student Accounts-Sign Up by Sept 10th

Kristen Carney — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:51:43 +0000

We’re super excited to see a number of college students starting to use Cubit to pull planning data for their class projects. After talking to students about what data they need and their budgets, we’re offering unlimited Cubit accounts to students for entire Fall 2010 semester for $10 if you sign up by September 10, 2010.

What do you get for $10?

Access to Cubit until December 31, 2010 including:

unlimited Socio-Ec Reports & Housing & Regional Economic Reports.
unlimited labeled reference maps
1 user account
5 saved projects

Students that are typically interested in Cubit accounts are taking classes in: Urban Planning, Geography, Government, and Economics; AND they are conducting research or have a project that requires current Census, demographic or economic data.

What’s the Catch?

The Student License is limited to course papers, class research, and scholarly articles only. So if you’re taking a class and working for a planning firm, you would NOT be able to use the Student License to pull data for projects for the planning firm. If you are working on projects for a planing firm or government agency, please encourage them to sign up for a paid Cubit account starting at $20 per month for unlimited data.

How to Get Your Student Account

Call us at 512-563-8477. We’ll set you up with an unlimited Cubit account and take your $10 payment over the phone.

Don’t wait – after September 10, 2010, you’ve missed your chance for a $10 student account.

Please forward this information to the college students and college professors that you know. The less time students spend pulling data, the more time they have to spend doing other important college activities–by which we mean studying and volunteer work, of course!

ACS 5 year Block Group and Tract Level Data Update

Kristen Carney — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:43:03 +0000

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.

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

Kristen Carney — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:28:29 +0000

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

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%.

The lack of tract-level controls (population totals by age/sex/race) has resulted in an increase of 15-25% in the standard errors.

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?

Corridor Transportation Planning: What Data is Needed?

Rachel Jacques — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:11:47 +0000

What’s in a corridor? Perhaps a better question is, what’s not? The National Cooperative Highway Research Project just released a NCHRP Report 661: A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning that provides a template for corridor planning to help states understand the connections between transportation decisions and issues like mobility, economic development, communities and the environment. They claim that statewide corridor planning (SWCP) is a more useful approach than system-wide orproject-based processes, and offer technical guidance and examples.

Why is SWCP better than traditional methods? In a nutshell, it emphasizes system preservation for the most important corridors, modes and facilities in the state or region. It can be easier to examine trade-offs among different modes, and enables more detailed project information like cost estimates. It also allows a more thorough exploration of non-transportation solutions (like land use and zoning) to transportation challenges.

They recommend the following five-step process:

Establish your organizing principles and institutional structure, including participation of non-metropolitan officials. Local officials’ input can be valuable for the success of statewide transportation plans.
Establish a corridor network, viewed from a multimodal perspective. With system preservation as the goal, an SWCP process emphasizes coordinating modal strategies rather than addressing each mode separately.
Identify study corridors, preferably a mixture of inter-city and metropolitan routes. A GIS can be a useful tool for scoring corridors based on preferred criteria, and it is a good idea to make a statewide database to collect data on performance and conditions over time.
Conduct corridor studies. This process may be detailed or brief depending on your needs. You should broadly define the “problem” to be solved by the project—this may include protecting environmentally sensitive areas, maybe social justice goals?
Create a statewide investment program and system management strategy. Consider both technical data and public input, and any factors of statewide or regional importance such as geographic equity, economic development needs, and other issues. Corridor studies can make recommendations beyond transportation infrastructure (smart growth, anyone?) so it pays to think broadly.

Adequate data is necessary for an SWCP approach. This includes traffic volumes, level of service, crash data, pavement conditions, adequacy ratings, and travel times for the corridors. You can also use data specific to transit (passenger volumes, trip frequency, mode, vehicle capacity) or freight (freight volumes by commodity, operator/driver regulations, delivery schedules, weight restrictions, off-loading transfer times). While states use both custom and government-sponsored tools for their analysis, it’s worth noting that none of the tools currently used deal with intermodal issues. This looks like a job for corridor-level planning!

What other goals might a corridor-based approach help accomplish? What kinds of data would be needed to do this? Leave a comment and tell us your ideas!

Census 2010 Schedule

Kristen Carney — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:06:59 +0000

Below is an up-to-date Census 2010 Schedule. It shows where we are now and when we can expect updated demographic data. I’ll keep updating the schedule below with up-to-date information as it becomes available from the Census Bureau. You can get more information about the Census 2010 on the Census Bureau’s website

Current Census 2010 Schedule

April 2010 – November 2010: Quality Assurance Operations
May 2010 – December 2010: Questionnaire Capture and Processing
December 31, 2010: Population Counts Report to the President by law

Future Key Census 2010 Schedule Dates

March 2011: Census Bureau delivers redistricting data to states
April 2011 to September 2013: Summary files for the 2010 Census data will be released “on a flow basis”

Past Census 2010 Schedule Dates

Fall 2008: Census Job Recruiting Begins
Spring 2009: Census employees updated nationwide address list
Fall 2009: Additional Recruitment of Census Takers
March 2010: Census Forms Mailed
April 2010: National Census Day – Day to use as reference for sending completed forms back
April to July 2010: Census takers visit households that did not return a form by mail

Get an email when the 2010 Census Data becomes available.

I hate SPAM–so I won’t send you any. I promise not to sell or rent your email address to other people. I’ll just send you a quick email about the 2010 Census data.

American Community Survey vs. Decennial Census: What’s the Difference

Kristen Carney — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:38:28 +0000

This post explains the differences between the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Decennial Census and how those differences will impact your work.

Background: Long Form and Short Form

Remember back to the Census 2000 when some people were complaining about the Census form taking forever to fill out? Well, those people received the Census 2000 Long Form which was sent to about 18 million households and collected detailed demographic, economic and housing data. The rest of the US households received the simple Census 2000 Short Form, which was used to count the population and collect basic demographic data. So for the Census 2000, 2 forms were used: the Long Form and the Short Form.

Fast-forward to the Census 2010. The Census 2010 did not use the Long Form, only the Short Form. Enter the ACS. The American Community Survey (ACS) is an annual demographic survey of the United States. It provides the detailed demographic, economic and housing data that was once supplied by the Decennal Census Long Form.

	2000	2010
Count + Basic Data	Short Form	Census 2010
Detailed Data	Long Form	ACS 5 year estimates

However, the ACS is only sent to 3 million households each year, a statistically small sample especially when compared to the Census 2000 Long Form which was sent to 18 million households in 1 year. So to produce the detailed demographic data, the ACS combines data from several years to produce multi-year estimates. For example, the ACS combines data collected from 2006 + 2007 + 2008 to get 3-year ACS estimates for geographies with at least 20,000 persons. ACS 5 year estimates, which will be out in December 2010, will provide data for geographies with fewer than 20,000 persons.

Similar Data; Different Methodologies & Format

The ACS and the Decennial Census provide the same types of data data–that is, demographic, economic and housing data for the US. However, the methodology of these 2 tools differs greatly.

	ACS	Decennial Census
What is It?	Continuos demographic survey	Count of the population
Data	Average characteristics OVER TIME	Counts characteristics for a SPECIFIC DATE
How Often	Every 1 year (more timely)	Every 10 years (less timely)
Households	11 million households over 5 years	18 million households in 1 year
Sampling Error	Higher Error (1.75 percent higher than Census 2000*)	Lower Error
Accuracy	Less Accurate	More Accurate

*[Revised: this information (and much of the blog post) is based on the Census Bureau's Brian McKenzie's awesome presentation here]

To sum up the table above, the ACS more timely but less accurate than the Decennial Census, because the data is collected over a series of years (instead of just 1 year), and fewer households are surveyed.

Because the ACS is less accurate, ACS data includes margins or error and is released at 90% confidence limits. Here’s an example of ACS data.

	Estimate	Error	Percent	Error
	Austin city
Hispanic/Latino	261,672	+/-3,404	35.0	+/-0.4

This means that we can say with 90% confidence that the number of Hispanic persons in Austin is between 258,268 and 265,076 (or 261,672 plus or minus 3,404). We can also say with 90% confidence that the percentage of Hispanic persons in Austin is between 34.6% and 35.4%.

How Does All of this Impact You?

ACS demographic data is less reliable than Decennial Census data. It’s going to be more important than ever use ACS data as a starting point only and to support the data fieldwork, interviews, and data from other sources.
Doing basic calculations with ACS data is going to require an elementary understanding of statistics. For example, calculating percentage change between Census 2000 data and ACS estimates will require basic statistics, because the numbers are not comparable (they are apples to oranges).

If you’re interested, let me know in the comments if a blog post on how to accurately calculate comparisons using Decennial Census data and ACS estimates would be helpful. Or you can check out the Census’ guidance on the topic. Any questions about the differences between ACS and Decennial Census data? Are there still points of confusion?

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.

Free Poverty Statistics Report with Federal Poverty Guidelines 2010

Kristen Carney — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:14:57 +0000

Poverty breaks the bank.

Yesterday, the DHHS published Federal Poverty Guidelines for 2010. And the poverty guidelines were released in time to be included in Cubit’s new Poverty Statistics Report beta. Check out a sample Poverty Statistics Report.

Right now, the Poverty Statistics Report beta has the 2010 Federal Poverty Guidelines, American Community Survey 2006-2008 estimates for Texas (the rest of the nation is coming), Census 2000 data down to the block group level and SNAP or food stamps data. Best of all, you can pull all of this data for your projects in seconds.

The Poverty Data Statistics Report will be free as long as it’s in beta. It’s not finished yet. We need your feedback. We’re hoping that you’ll tell us what other types of data you need for your projects. Do you need Medicaid counts, median home values or school district data? Leave me a comment or send me an email here.

How do I get free Poverty Statistics Reports for my projects?

First, you need a free Cubit account. Log in to your existing account, or sign up if you don’t have an account yet. Sign up takes 30 seconds. Then, draw your project area on a Google map interface. Save your drawing and click on the Poverty Statistics Report button. And ta-da! Instant, cut-and-paste ready poverty data for your project.