Elaine: I have been working on this for the next CIA. Dramatic declines in
spending for auto purchases starting around 2004 or so is a major factor.
Alan
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net]
On Behalf Of Elaine.Murakami(a)dot.gov
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:58 PM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] Consumer Expenditures 25 year comparison
http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/a-comparison-of-25-years-of-consumer-ex
penditures-by-homeowners-and-renters.htm
This report finds that the share of household expenditures for
transportation has dropped by 5 percent for homeowners, and 4 percent for
renters, and the share of expenditures for housing has increased by 3
percent for homeowners, and 5 percent for renters. Despite the drop in the
share for transportation overall, the share spent on GASOLINE has
increased. People keep vehicles for many more years (as reflected in the
National Household Transportation Survey results
http://nhts.ornl.gov/2001/pub/STT.pdf
, so the costs of ownership are amortized over a longer period of time.
Hi Everyone - I posted this link to the CTPP Facebook page, but since there
are MORE of you on the CTPP listserv, I decided I should share it here.
Also, please note that previously you had to PAY for CES microdata, but it
is NOW FREE. http://www.bls.gov/cex/pumdhome.htm
Elaine Murakami
FHWA Office of Planning
206-220-4460 (in Seattle)
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 7631 (20121026) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/a-comparison-of-25-years-of-consumer-e…
This report finds that the share of household expenditures for transportation has dropped by 5 percent for homeowners, and 4 percent for renters, and the share of expenditures for housing has increased by 3 percent for homeowners, and 5 percent for renters. Despite the drop in the share for transportation overall, the share spent on GASOLINE has increased. People keep vehicles for many more years (as reflected in the National Household Transportation Survey results http://nhts.ornl.gov/2001/pub/STT.pdf
, so the costs of ownership are amortized over a longer period of time.
Hi Everyone - I posted this link to the CTPP Facebook page, but since there are MORE of you on the CTPP listserv, I decided I should share it here. Also, please note that previously you had to PAY for CES microdata, but it is NOW FREE. http://www.bls.gov/cex/pumdhome.htm
Elaine Murakami
FHWA Office of Planning
206-220-4460 (in Seattle)
Mike Greenwald / Liang Long / everyone else:
I have no experience with ACS Alchemist, but will certainly take a close look at it. Much of my research involves analyzing demographic/population at small geographies over large areas (county, state, national). I have used the ACS Summary File Retrieval tool for several years and really find it useful--probably have downloaded 40+ 2006-10 block grp level statewide datasets this year alone.
Yes, there is definitely some cleanup and organization to get the data into GIS. But I really appreciate that the tool is reliable and creates easy-to-interpret tables with MOE. On the one hand the data cleanup prior to GIS takes time, but on the other hand the clear descriptions/headings reduces mistakes and ambiguity. Also, I can tell you from experience that the excellent column and row descriptions make tracing previous work much easier.
I use Excel primarily, but Access occasionally (Census summary files etc). If my opinion or experience is of any help to you Mike don't hesitate to try me. I cannot promise much as far as time, but I may be of some assistance in some way.
Jonathan P. Brooks.
Assistant Transportation Researcher
Transit Mobility Program
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
701 N Post Oak Rd, Suite 430
Houston, TX 77063
Tel 713.686.2971 | Cell 806.440.2462
http://tti.tamu.edu/group/transit-mobility
-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of ctpp-news-request(a)chrispy.net
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 12:00 PM
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Subject: ctpp-news Digest, Vol 104, Issue 10
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I should clarify the error message:
The software successfully creates the shape file, however, the attribute table contains only zero values.
Thanks in advance,
Martin Catala
813-974-9791
catala(a)cutr.usf.edu
From: Catala, Martin
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 3:15 PM
To: 'ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net'
Subject: RE: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Hi All,
I have used the AS Alchemist and I too like the interface. I was not able to successfully create census tract or blockgroup results.
I was wondering if someone else has experienced this and was able to work around it.
Martin Catala
813-974-9791
catala(a)cutr.usf.edu<mailto:catala(a)cutr.usf.edu>
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net<mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net> [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Liang Long
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:55 PM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net<mailto:ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net>
Subject: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Hi, all
If you are frustrated by getting the ACS 5-year block group level data via Census Bureau ftpsite or DataFerrett, ACS Alchemist may be a good alternative.
I just tested ACS Achemist that was developed by Azavea & Temple University and I think it's easy to use. But keep in mind that only ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data are available in the ACS Alchemist. If you are looking for 1-year or 3-year data, you still need Census Bureau data access tools including American Fact finder and DataFerrett.
ACS Achemist is an open source tool that enables the extraction of ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data on different level of geographic aggregation, i.e., counties, county sub-division, tracts, blockgroups, etc. . The user interface is very straightforward and is a simple step-by-step process. The thing I like most is that output is saved as the shapefile and you can process your data in the GIS. The think I like least is that uses will have to create a variable file to define which data they want to get. The sample of a variable file can be find in the readme document which is included in the software installation package, but I attached one here for your convenience.
Here is the link to the ACS Alchemist home page:
http://www.azavea.com/news/archive/2012/7/31/azavea-and-temple-universitys-…
Here is the link to download the software package:
https://github.com/azavea/acs-alchemist/downloads
Enjoy!
Liang Long
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
4800 Hampden Lane
Suite 800
Bethesda, MD 20814
tel 301 347 9141
fax 301 347 0101
FHWA 202-366-6971
e-mail llong(a)camsys.com<mailto:llong(a)camsys.com>
www.camsys.com
Hi All,
I have used the AS Alchemist and I too like the interface. I was not able to successfully create census tract or blockgroup results.
I was wondering if someone else has experienced this and was able to work around it.
Martin Catala
813-974-9791
catala(a)cutr.usf.edu
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Liang Long
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:55 PM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Hi, all
If you are frustrated by getting the ACS 5-year block group level data via Census Bureau ftpsite or DataFerrett, ACS Alchemist may be a good alternative.
I just tested ACS Achemist that was developed by Azavea & Temple University and I think it's easy to use. But keep in mind that only ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data are available in the ACS Alchemist. If you are looking for 1-year or 3-year data, you still need Census Bureau data access tools including American Fact finder and DataFerrett.
ACS Achemist is an open source tool that enables the extraction of ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data on different level of geographic aggregation, i.e., counties, county sub-division, tracts, blockgroups, etc. . The user interface is very straightforward and is a simple step-by-step process. The thing I like most is that output is saved as the shapefile and you can process your data in the GIS. The think I like least is that uses will have to create a variable file to define which data they want to get. The sample of a variable file can be find in the readme document which is included in the software installation package, but I attached one here for your convenience.
Here is the link to the ACS Alchemist home page:
http://www.azavea.com/news/archive/2012/7/31/azavea-and-temple-universitys-…
Here is the link to download the software package:
https://github.com/azavea/acs-alchemist/downloads
Enjoy!
Liang Long
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
4800 Hampden Lane
Suite 800
Bethesda, MD 20814
tel 301 347 9141
fax 301 347 0101
FHWA 202-366-6971
e-mail llong(a)camsys.com<mailto:llong(a)camsys.com>
www.camsys.com
Hi Liang,
Actually, yes I did use the Summary File Retrieval Tool for Block Group Level ACS data; I've had fairly good luck with it, actually. I take your point about the GEOID number being not that intuitive but, to be fair, it DOES follow a coherent pattern. That means the end user can o some work stripping out the Block Group FIPS code to make it match up with the way it is usually recorded in other databases (e.g., in an ArcGIS map theme). It's actually pretty easy to do in Excel, just obnoxious.
Given what I've learned from puttering around with the Summary File Retrieval Tool, I've put together a little side project for myself where I'm building a master indices at the Block Group and Tract level which contains the record indices for both the SF1 and ACS datasets (anyone who might be interested can see my earlier posts to this list).
Right now, I've only completed Oregon (i.e., the state where I work), but my eventual goal would be to do it for every State/Territory in the union. The only real difficulties are that the amount and size of the transitional working files limits me to working on one state, and level of geography, at a time (i.e., I can't download all the Summary File Retrieval Tool spreadsheets for each state into a single Microsoft Access database, where I could write a master query to do the GEOID parsing).
If anyone is interested in discussing this pet project/idea with me, I'd be happy to talk off list. I can send a demo of what I've built for Oregon, and if people are interested, perhaps we might crowdsource the project on this listserve?
Just a thought. Let me know if anyone is interested.
Mike Greenwald
Michael J. Greenwald
Senior Transportation Planner
Lane Council of Governments
859 Willamette Street, Suite 500
Eugene, OR 97402
Tel: 541-682-6595
Fax: 541-682-4099
mgreenwald(a)lcog.org
-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of liang.long(a)dot.gov
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 8:36 AM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
Subject: Re: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Hi, Mike
Thanks for sharing your experience with the Summary File Retrieval Tool.
I assisted a user to use the retrieval tool to get ACS block group level data a while ago. However the GEOID in the output spreadsheets were all wrong. I complained this issue to the Census staff during the ACS program Federal users review and probably they have fixed this issue. But I never got the chance to test it. Did you use the tool for the Block Group level data? If so, how did it go?
Liang Long
________________________________________
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] on behalf of GREENWALD Michael J [MGREENWALD(a)lcog.org]
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 4:20 PM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
Subject: Re: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Thanks to Liang for these links. I, too, have found FactFinder and DataFerrett to be less than intuitive. Building on Liang's message, in addition to ACS Alchemist, US Census also puts out a data retrieval tool that does a pretty good job of retrieving the 1, 3 and/or 5 year data sets. Look at the links for the Summary File Retrieval Tool under "Tools for Using the ACS Summary File" at the following link:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/summary_file/
The difference between something like ACS Alchemist or the Summary File Retrieval Tool is a matter of both task and personal preference. For example, some of my tasks involve dealing with both the ACS Estimate and the Margin of Error (two different data columns), so I like the fact that the Summary File Retrieval tool can be easily set up to consolidate both of those pieces of data. I also like the fact that the Summary File Retrieval Tool automatically loads the ACS table names and column definition in a Metadata tab, so you can easily turn to the documentation in the middle of your data assembly tasks.
That said, it does take some extra steps to get the data into a nice, clean format that plugs into a GIS; ACS Alchemist may handle a lot of those tasks on the back end. So, it is a question of how one wants to access the data. I would be interested in hearing from others what experience they've had with the Summary File Retrieval Tool. Any thoughts?
Mike Greenwald
Michael J. Greenwald
Senior Transportation Planner
Lane Council of Governments
859 Willamette Street, Suite 500
Eugene, OR 97402
Tel: 541-682-6595
Fax: 541-682-4099
mgreenwald(a)lcog.org<mailto:mgreenwald(a)lcog.org>
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Liang Long
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 11:55 AM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Hi, all
If you are frustrated by getting the ACS 5-year block group level data via Census Bureau ftpsite or DataFerrett, ACS Alchemist may be a good alternative.
I just tested ACS Achemist that was developed by Azavea & Temple University and I think it's easy to use. But keep in mind that only ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data are available in the ACS Alchemist. If you are looking for 1-year or 3-year data, you still need Census Bureau data access tools including American Fact finder and DataFerrett.
ACS Achemist is an open source tool that enables the extraction of ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data on different level of geographic aggregation, i.e., counties, county sub-division, tracts, blockgroups, etc. . The user interface is very straightforward and is a simple step-by-step process. The thing I like most is that output is saved as the shapefile and you can process your data in the GIS. The think I like least is that uses will have to create a variable file to define which data they want to get. The sample of a variable file can be find in the readme document which is included in the software installation package, but I attached one here for your convenience.
Here is the link to the ACS Alchemist home page:
http://www.azavea.com/news/archive/2012/7/31/azavea-and-temple-universitys-…
Here is the link to download the software package:
https://github.com/azavea/acs-alchemist/downloads
Enjoy!
Liang Long
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
4800 Hampden Lane
Suite 800
Bethesda, MD 20814
tel 301 347 9141
fax 301 347 0101
FHWA 202-366-6971
e-mail llong(a)camsys.com<mailto:llong(a)camsys.com>
www.camsys.com
_______________________________________________
ctpp-news mailing list
ctpp-news(a)ryoko.chrispy.nethttp://ryoko.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/ctpp-news
Thanks to Liang for these links. I, too, have found FactFinder and DataFerrett to be less than intuitive. Building on Liang's message, in addition to ACS Alchemist, US Census also puts out a data retrieval tool that does a pretty good job of retrieving the 1, 3 and/or 5 year data sets. Look at the links for the Summary File Retrieval Tool under "Tools for Using the ACS Summary File" at the following link:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/summary_file/
The difference between something like ACS Alchemist or the Summary File Retrieval Tool is a matter of both task and personal preference. For example, some of my tasks involve dealing with both the ACS Estimate and the Margin of Error (two different data columns), so I like the fact that the Summary File Retrieval tool can be easily set up to consolidate both of those pieces of data. I also like the fact that the Summary File Retrieval Tool automatically loads the ACS table names and column definition in a Metadata tab, so you can easily turn to the documentation in the middle of your data assembly tasks.
That said, it does take some extra steps to get the data into a nice, clean format that plugs into a GIS; ACS Alchemist may handle a lot of those tasks on the back end. So, it is a question of how one wants to access the data. I would be interested in hearing from others what experience they've had with the Summary File Retrieval Tool. Any thoughts?
Mike Greenwald
Michael J. Greenwald
Senior Transportation Planner
Lane Council of Governments
859 Willamette Street, Suite 500
Eugene, OR 97402
Tel: 541-682-6595
Fax: 541-682-4099
mgreenwald(a)lcog.org<mailto:mgreenwald(a)lcog.org>
From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Liang Long
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 11:55 AM
To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data
Hi, all
If you are frustrated by getting the ACS 5-year block group level data via Census Bureau ftpsite or DataFerrett, ACS Alchemist may be a good alternative.
I just tested ACS Achemist that was developed by Azavea & Temple University and I think it's easy to use. But keep in mind that only ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data are available in the ACS Alchemist. If you are looking for 1-year or 3-year data, you still need Census Bureau data access tools including American Fact finder and DataFerrett.
ACS Achemist is an open source tool that enables the extraction of ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data on different level of geographic aggregation, i.e., counties, county sub-division, tracts, blockgroups, etc. . The user interface is very straightforward and is a simple step-by-step process. The thing I like most is that output is saved as the shapefile and you can process your data in the GIS. The think I like least is that uses will have to create a variable file to define which data they want to get. The sample of a variable file can be find in the readme document which is included in the software installation package, but I attached one here for your convenience.
Here is the link to the ACS Alchemist home page:
http://www.azavea.com/news/archive/2012/7/31/azavea-and-temple-universitys-…
Here is the link to download the software package:
https://github.com/azavea/acs-alchemist/downloads
Enjoy!
Liang Long
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
4800 Hampden Lane
Suite 800
Bethesda, MD 20814
tel 301 347 9141
fax 301 347 0101
FHWA 202-366-6971
e-mail llong(a)camsys.com<mailto:llong(a)camsys.com>
www.camsys.com
Hi, all
If you are frustrated by getting the ACS 5-year block group level data via
Census Bureau ftpsite or DataFerrett, ACS Alchemist may be a good
alternative.
I just tested ACS Achemist that was developed by Azavea & Temple
University and I think it's easy to use. But keep in mind that only ACS
2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data are available in the ACS Alchemist. If
you are looking for 1-year or 3-year data, you still need Census Bureau
data access tools including American Fact finder and DataFerrett.
ACS Achemist is an open source tool that enables the extraction of ACS
2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data on different level of geographic
aggregation, i.e., counties, county sub-division, tracts, blockgroups,
etc. . The user interface is very straightforward and is a simple
step-by-step process. The thing I like most is that output is saved as
the shapefile and you can process your data in the GIS. The think I like
least is that uses will have to create a variable file to define which
data they want to get. The sample of a variable file can be find in the
readme document which is included in the software installation package,
but I attached one here for your convenience.
Here is the link to the ACS Alchemist home page:
http://www.azavea.com/news/archive/2012/7/31/azavea-and-temple-universitys-…
Here is the link to download the software package:
https://github.com/azavea/acs-alchemist/downloads
Enjoy!
Liang Long
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
4800 Hampden Lane
Suite 800
Bethesda, MD 20814
tel 301 347 9141
fax 301 347 0101
FHWA 202-366-6971
e-mail llong(a)camsys.comwww.camsys.com
Hello everyone,
I recently finished a summer internship at the City of Cambridge MA
Community Development Department doing web development and demographic data
gathering. Much of of my job during July and August consisted of mining
data from the Census Summary File 1 and American Community Survey 5-year
estimates for use in a public profile of the city's neighborhood
characteristics.
To make this process easier, I wrote a simple utility to gather data using
the census API. While much of its functionality overlaps with American
FactFinder, it is also able to retrieve data from the block and block group
level, making it useful for areas like Cambridge where neighborhood
boundaries do not exactly align with census tracts. I'd like to release it
open source to anyone who'll find it useful.
Basic features:
- .EXE file that runs out of the Windows or Linux
terminal. Unfortunately won't run on Macintosh (but will work in parallels
or boot camp)
- Simple text-based interface
- Search any available geography anywhere in the United States, down to the
block/block group level (where available)
- Retrieve up to 5 variables at a time for unlimited geographies at a time.
The 5 variable limit is on the end of the census API, not this utility.
- Automatically saves retrieved variables into a .csv file that can be
opened by excel.
- Can only search ACS 5-year for the time being. Adding SF1 functionality
is fairly straightforward.
The national use section of the utility is fairly narrow, but has potential
for expansion. The most robust functionality is specific to the City of
Cambridge, and I added national searches as an afterthought.
The interface is divided into two modes, National and Cambridge specific
search, and both work similarly. When you choose to conduct a national
search of the ACS 5-year, you will be prompted with the following menu:
[image: Inline image 1]
Typing 10 will prompt you to enter the variable IDs (up to 5) and the
geographies. Note that you can search as many geographies as you like, but
they must be of the same type (the lowest in the hierarchy, so for *10:
state-county-tract-block group *you can search up to 5 variables for any
number of block groups in the chosen census tract.
The format for entering a search for query type 10 would be:
*tableID1,tableID2,tableID3 stateFIPScode countyFIPScode tractFIPScode
blockGroup1,blockGroup2*
For example to search ACS estimates B02001_002E and B02001_003E, (off the
top of my head I think _002E is race: white and _003E is race: black /
african american) in the state of Massachusetts (code 017) in Middlesex
county (code 025) census tract 353500 block groups 1 and 2, you would enter:
*B02001_002E,B002001_003E 025 017 353500 1,2*
*
*
This isn't the most friendly format but it's nice for grabbing large
amounts of information on several geographies at a time. For general ease
of use I'd suggest using an external notepad program to assemble your
queries and then paste them in so you don't have to retype it all in case
of a typo. All queries follow this format of the table/variable IDs
separated by commas followed by the geographies in the order they appear
separated by spaces.
The main functionality that I'd like to add in the future is the ability to
create custom geographies. Since Cambridge has 13 neighborhoods that do not
exactly line up with census tracts, I hard coded in each neighborhood's
component tracts and/or block groups so the neighborhoods could be searched
as a whole. This can be easily written to work dynamically for the entire
country, allowing you to save custom geographies of multiple census tracts,
counties, or any combination of counties, subcounties, block groups, etc.
There is a half-written geoGroup class that is intended to do this.
The program is written in C++ which is not the most user-friendly language,
but the code is commented and fairly repetitive, so shouldn't be too
arcane. I'll continually make changes and I'd invite anyone who's
interested in this utility's use / potential uses to give me feedback or
suggestions or make changes of your own. If there is interest in improving
it, I would also like to, at some point, rewrite the utility in Java with a
graphical interface and the ability to use custom geographies. I am in no
way a professional programmer (I'm a 4th year sociology undergrad with a
computer science minor) so I'm sure there are plenty of things in the code
that could be cleaned up or improved.
It was written in a Cygwin environment using a Cygwin version of LibCurl so
C could read data from http, and is released this under the general public
license (which is compatible with Cygwin's GPL and Curl's openBSD).
The current source code can be found in a GitHub repository
here<https://github.com/UpQuark/CensusRetrieverSource>.
The compiled executable of the current version and its dependent libraries
can be downloaded here <http://www.fileswap.com/dl/01ZiyjiDlY/>.
Regards,
Samuel Ennis
Apparently, the ACS staff heard our concerns about the need for employment status by block group but forgot to tell us they did something about it..
In the 2011 ACS, there is a new Table B23025, which has simplified labor for data without the age/gender breakouts. This table will be available in the 2007-2011 ACS (5-year) file and will be available for block groups.
But, I just stumbled across this table for block groups from the 2006-2010 ACS (5-year) file!!!!! Since I don't know if anyone else knows about this special file, I'm sharing. It is at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/laborfor/acs_employ.html.
Nancy Gemignani
California State Census Data Center
Demographic Research Unit
Department of Finance
915 L Street, 8th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 327-0103 ext 2550
nancy.gemignani(a)dof.ca.gov<mailto:nancy.gemignani(a)dof.ca.gov>