To all --
It has come to our attention that the City/Place boundaries currently
showing up in the TAZ-Up software is actually the boundaries as they were in
the 1990 Census. TIGER does have updated boundaries within them. If you
find a need for updated boundaries as you delineate your TAZs, simply e-mail
me and we'll process your counties and e-mail you back a file. You'll be
able to add these new boundaries with the "Add a Theme" function that already
exists in the software.
If you desire these, make sure your e-mail includes the following:
Your name
MPO organization name
Your e-mail address
A list of the Counties, with their state & county codes
(i.e., 37085), for all the counties you're working on.
Depending on the load, we should be able to send them back to you in
about two days from receipt of your e-mail.
Thanks
Kim Brace
Election Data Services, Inc.
With the help from Howard Simkowitz and Caliper Corp I was able to use TransCAD 3.5 and their District Management tools for the Phase Two Census work. The key is their "atomized polygons." Although the jury is still out, I feel obliged to other TransCAD users in the group to report the procedures used in Indianapolis. The attached is that initial effort. I will refine that document as we gain more experience in our operations.
So far, I am impressed with the ease of Phase 2 Utilities. Due to the messy natures Census segments, I have not yet to assess the accuracy of tagging operations. I have certainly achieve significant time saving by tagging the existing TAZ layer to the TIGER polygons. Please consider the attached very preliminary working document. I would welcome any comments and questions.
Sweson Yang, AICP
Chief Transportation Planner
City of Indianapolis/Indianapolis MPO
(317) 327-5137 FAX: (317) 327-5103
E-mail: syang(a)IndyGov.org
From: Census2000 <Census2000(a)ccmc.org>
Funding Tops List of Census Concerns As Congress Tackles Fiscal Year
2000 Spending Bills
Operational Update: Address List Appeal Process Set
With Congress returning to work in Washington, D.C. this week, the
schedule for considering the appropriations bills that will fund
Census 2000 operations next year is still unclear. The Senate
Committee on Appropriations approved its version of the Fiscal Year
2000 Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related
Agencies Appropriations bill (S. 1217) last month, but Senate
leaders have not announced a date for the full Senate to consider
the measure. The committee-approved bill allocates $2.789 billion
for census operations but does not include an extra $1.723 billion
the Administration requested on June 1 to pay for its revised census
plan.
The Senate Appropriations Committee modified the amount of money
each of its 13 subcommittees can spend on non-mandatory programs in
fiscal year 2000 (FY00). The committee increased the discretionary
spending limit for the Commerce-Justice-State account from $28
billion to $29.5 billion, still about $4 billion less than the
current year's (FY99) funding level of $33.3 billion for that
account.
In the House, the appropriations Commerce-Justice-State subcommittee
has tentative plans to consider its version of the spending bill
during the week of July 19. The panel, chaired by Rep. Harold
Rogers (R-KY), has not released a draft bill.
Census long form still topic of debate: When the Senate takes up the
FY00 spending bill that covers the Census Bureau, Senator Sam
Brownback (R-KS) may offer an amendment to add questions on marital
status to the census short form. The senator is circulating a draft
amendment that would require the Census Bureau to collect
information on respondents' marital status, their age when married,
and previous marriages from all households in the 2000 census.
Senator Brownback was a member of the Committee on Governmental
Affairs, which oversees the census, in the 105th Congress (1997 -
98).
Three years before each census, the Census Bureau must report to
Congress the topics it will cover on the census forms. It must
report the actual questions it will include on the short and long
forms two years before the census starts. The Bureau notified
Congress in March 1997 that it would include a question on marital
status only on the long form, which goes to one in six households
(about 17 percent of all households). Information on marital status
is needed to administer federal programs but is not required for
areas as small as census blocks, the smallest geographic unit for
reporting data collected from 100 percent of the nation's homes.
The 1990 census asked about marital status on the short form that
goes to all households. In 2000 the census will include one
question asking long form respondents if they are or have ever been
married, or are currently widowed, separated, or divorced. Private
contractors have already started printing the more than 120 million
questionnaires that are needed for the 2000 census.
More legislative news: Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the senior
Democrat on the census oversight subcommittee, has introduced
legislation to require a "special census" in 2003 of private
American citizens living overseas. Rep. Maloney said that while it
was too late to include Americans living abroad in the 2000 census,
she was "impressed by the patriotic desire, organization, and
planning ...overseas Americans have devoted to being counted." The
"Census of Americans Abroad Act" (H.R. 2444) was referred to the
Committee on Government Reform.
Last month, the census subcommittee held a hearing on proposals to
count all Americans living abroad in the census. Rep. Benjamin
Gilman (R-NY) introduced a resolution (H. Con. Res. 129) expressing
the "sense of the Congress" that Americans living overseas should be
counted in the 2000 census. The Census Bureau will use
administrative records from the Defense Department and other federal
agencies to count military personnel and federal civilian employees
stationed overseas in the 2000 census for congressional
apportionment purposes only.
Final rules set for address list appeals: The Census Address List
Appeals Office, an independent office established by the Office of
Management and Budget, has issued final rules governing pre-census
challenges to the census address lists under the Local Update of
Census Addresses (LUCA) program. The rules provide a final
opportunity for local and Tribal governments that participated in
address development activities (the LUCA program) to challenge the
address list for their jurisdiction before the census starts in
March 2000. Localities may appeal Census Bureau decisions not to
accept additional addresses or corrections submitted during the LUCA
process.
The rules were published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, June
30, 1999, and can be found in Vol. 64, No. 125, Part V, pp.
35548-35558. The rules, entitled "Procedures for Participating in
the Census Bureau Reconciliation and the Office of Management and
Budget Appeal Processes for the Development of the Census 2000
Address List," are also available through the National Archives and
Records Administration web site at www.nara.gov/fedreg
<http://www.nara.gov/fedreg>. Stakeholders may also contact Mr.
Phil Fulton, director of the Appeals Office, for more information at
202/208-4613.
Congressional staff changes: Thomas Hofeller, staff director of the
House Subcommittee on the Census, is leaving the subcommittee to
oversee post-2000 census redistricting efforts for the Republican
National Committee. Mr. Hofeller, a seasoned redistricting expert
for the GOP, assumed the top staff position when the census panel
was created in early 1998. The subcommittee's deputy staff
director, Thomas Brierton, has been named "Acting Director." Mr.
Brierton's congressional experience includes legislative work for
Rep. (now Speaker) J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL). Florida Rep. Dan
Miller chairs the census oversight panel.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be
directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at 202/484-2270 or, by e-mail at
terriann2k(a)aol.com. For copies of previous News Alerts and other
information, use our web site www.census2000.org . Please direct
all requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in
address/phone/fax/e-mail, to the Census 2000 Initiative at
Census2000(a)ccmc.org or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to circulate
this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.
Don thanks for reminding me to follow up. the webcast did not go out live as
there was some technical difficulty with the hotel's network. however, the
session was recorded and i am told it will be uploaded and put online later this
week. i will keep checking and once it goes up i will let the list serve know.
Don Burrell wrote:
> Ed:
> I am curious as to whether or not Sunday's TRB CTPP session was successfully
> broadcast over the Net. I was not successful in accessing it despite
> downloading MediaPlay. While I often suspect such failures are due to my
> inexperience with the software, once in a while it turns out that the system
> screwed up.
> --
> >You will be able to access the live broadcast (and related information
> >about this event) through a link in http://www-cta.ornl.gov.
To asist those who have questions about the TAZ-UP process, the CTPP
Planning Group has develop a web page of frequently asked
questions. The page will be updated as new questions emerge. It
can be reached directly at
http://www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/notes/tazfaq.html
or from the subcomittee's main page under the "committee notes and
articles" button
http://www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/
This weekend the TRB data committees will be having their mid-year
meeting (http://www.bts.gov/midyear.html). As part of it, the
Subcommittee on Census Data for Transportation planning will be hosting
a session entitled "The Reality of the American Community Survey for
Transportation", Sunday, June 27th, 1999, 4:00 PM. The session will be
held in the Swissotel Washington--The Watergate, Washington, D.C.
I have just learned that the Center for Transportation Analysis at the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) together with the TRB will be
conducting the first live Internet broadcast of a TRB session during our
session. Internet users will be able to see the overhead transparencies
(and other visual materials) while listening to the talk in real time.
Users will also be able to send questions to the speaker through the
chat room connection provided.
You will be able to access the live broadcast (and related information
about this event) through a link in http://www-cta.ornl.gov. Please
notice that in order to see and hear the live broadcast you need to have
installed in your computer the Windows Media Player software. Use the
"Test" button on the top bar of the web page to determine whether or not
this software is installed in your machine. If it is not, then use the
"Download Windows MP" button to get a free copy of the software. After
downloading Windows Media Player you must proceed to install it.
Thanks and questions to Oscar Franzese of Oak Ridge for this,
ofz(a)ornl.gov, 423-576-8682.
From: Census2000 <Census2000(a)ccmc.org>
House Panel Considers Proposal to Count Americans Overseas;
Wisconsin Lawmakers Advocate New Rules for Counting Military
Families and Prisoners
The House Subcommittee on the Census held a hearing on June 9 to
review proposals to count all Americans living overseas in the
census and to change the way members of the armed forces stationed
in the U.S. and certain prisoners are counted. The panel heard
testimony from two Members of Congress, Census Bureau Director
Kenneth Prewitt, and several organizations advocating a count of
Americans abroad.
Subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL) said in his opening remarks
that "all of these proposals address legitimate concerns." Rep.
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the panel's senior Democrat, said that while
Congress should consider these issues, it should do so "in a more
systematic fashion and in a time frame that allowed for proper
consideration of these ideas." Speaking generally about the three
proposals, Dr. Prewitt said: "We need to make sure that any policy
changes are consistent with the original intent of the census to
determine the 'whole number of persons in each state' for purposes
of apportionment." He said lack of sufficient time to "introduce
complex new procedures to the design" was the largest barrier to
implementing any of the new proposals at this stage of census
preparations.
Counting Americans living overseas: Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), who
chairs the Committee on International Relations, testified that
failure to count private American citizens living overseas in the
census is discriminatory. He noted that the Census Bureau plans to
count members of the armed forces, civilian employees of federal
agencies, and all of their dependents stationed abroad during the
census, for congressional apportionment purposes, as it did in
1990. (Apportionment refers to dividing up the 435 seats in the
U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states based on the state
population totals compiled from the census.) The congressman said
the census should include overseas Americans because of their role
in promoting U.S. national interests around the world.
Rep. Gilman has introduced House Concurrent Resolution 129 (H. Con.
Res. 129), expressing the "sense of the Congress" that the Census
Bureau should include all overseas Americans in the 2000 census.
The resolution does not specify whether private American citizens
living abroad should be counted only for congressional apportionment
or for other purposes such as redistricting and allocating program
funds. The Bureau only needs to calculate the total population of
each state as the basis for apportionment, while the data used for
drawing political district boundaries (redistricting) requires
placing people and households in specific census blocks. Federal
programs require census data at various levels of geography to
distribute funds according to a formula or to determine program
eligibility. Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) is the sponsor of a
companion resolution, S. Con. Res. 38.
Chairman Miller, who is a cosponsor of the Gilman resolution,
observed that Americans living and working overseas "play a key role
in advancing our national interests around the world." The chairman
said Americans overseas should be included in the census, although
we may have to lower our standards of accuracy to do so. Rep.
Miller said he supports counting this population in 2000, but that
the Census Bureau must prepare to do so in 2010 if it cannot be
ready to conduct such a count next year.
Director Prewitt suggested in his testimony that Congress commission
in-depth studies to explore the highly complex issues involved in
counting private American citizens living overseas. He noted that
previous attempts to count Americans living overseas have produced
data of unusable quality and that the Constitution does not speak to
counting the non-resident population. After meeting with advocates
of counting this population, the Bureau concluded, "it cannot
credibly enumerate the population of American citizens living
abroad," Dr. Prewitt said.
The director cited concerns about accuracy, since the Bureau does
not have reliable estimates of the overseas population to check the
progress of the count, as it does in the United States using the
master address list and independent population estimates. The
Bureau was also concerned that the voluntary nature of an overseas
count might tempt some states to mount publicity campaigns in order
to boost their populations for apportionment purposes. Dr. Prewitt
said the Bureau would need substantial additional funds for an
overseas count, as well as considerable lead times to design and
print questionnaires and to coordinate the census effort with the
State Department. He did not estimate how much a count of overseas
Americans would cost.
Dr. Prewitt distinguished the inclusion of military and federal
civilian personnel stationed overseas by noting that this population
is counted using administrative records maintained by the Defense
Department and other agencies. The Bureau plans to count overseas
military and government personnel at the home of record noted in
their personnel file, which usually refers to the place where a
person lived when he or she joined the military or federal service.
The Bureau followed this policy in 1990, after the House of
Representatives passed a bill directing the Bureau to count overseas
military personnel at their home of record for apportionment
purposes. The House had soundly defeated a proposal in 1988 to
count military personnel stationed abroad in the state where they
last resided for at least six months before shipping overseas.
The subcommittee heard testimony from the Census 2000 Coalition, as
well as from representatives of several organizations belonging to
the Coalition. Executive Director David Hamod described the
Coalition as "an ad hoc, bipartisan group dedicated to including all
Americans living and working overseas in next year's census" and
said it is comprised of "all major organizations representing U.S.
citizens and U.S. companies overseas." The individual organizations
testifying at the hearing were the Association of Americans Resident
Overseas (AARO); American Chambers of Commerce abroad and
Republicans Abroad (one witness, who also identified himself as an
officer of the American Business Council of Gulf Countries,
represented both of these organizations); Democrats Abroad; and
American Citizens Abroad. All of these groups noted that the
Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act of 1975 gave Americans living
overseas the right to vote in federal elections in the state and
congressional district in which they last resided.
Mr. Hamod of the Census 2000 Coalition listed four reasons to
include Americans abroad in the 2000 census: promoting U.S.
competitiveness, ensuring political representation for all
Americans, treating private citizens overseas in the same manner as
military and government employees, and ensuring an accurate census.
The Coalition did not specify whether it believes private citizens
abroad should be counted only for congressional apportionment or for
other purposes as well.
Mr. Hamod said the Bureau's concerns about an overseas census "are
simply red herrings" that are "a pretext to discriminate against
Americans abroad." He suggested the Bureau distribute a form
prepared by the Coalition through the Bureau's web site, U.S.
embassies and consulates, and organizations representing Americans
abroad. (Dr. Prewitt, however, chided the group for distributing a
draft questionnaire that appeared to be a Census Bureau document.)
Responses could be verified, Mr. Hamod said, using passport
numbers. Mr. Hamod concluded by saying "it is high time to overhaul
an obsolete policy that treats U.S. citizens overseas as nobodies
rather than as the valuable national asset they are."
Rep. Maloney said "she was sympathetic to the desires of overseas
Americans to be counted" but that Congress must address several key
questions first. The congresswoman said a count of all overseas
Americans would be of "questionable" accuracy because it must rely
only on voluntary participation without any procedures to follow-up
with people who don't send in a form, as enumerators usually do in
the census. She also said Congress must clarify where (for example,
last residence, legal residence, or voting residence) and for what
purposes these Americans should be included. Rep. Maloney announced
that she would introduce legislation to require a census of
Americans living overseas in 2003, to give Congress sufficient time
to consider whether to include this population in the 2010 count.
Subcommittee member Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) questioned whether an
overseas count would be reliable, given the wide ranging estimates
of how many Americans live and work abroad.
Changing residency rules for counting prisoners and military
personnel in the U.S.: At its June 9 hearing, the census
subcommittee also discussed proposals to change the way certain
prisoners and members of the armed forces stationed in the U.S. are
counted in the census.
Rep. Mark Green (R-WI) is sponsor of a bill (H.R. 1632) to require
that state prisoners be counted as residents of the state that pays
more than half of the cost of incarcerating them. The change in
counting policy is necessary, Rep. Green testified, to accommodate
the growing "practice of states leasing prison space in other
states." The congressman argued that because many federal programs
rely on census data, "the originating state will lose federal funds
to the states which are housing out-of-state prisoners temporarily."
Rep. Green noted that about 3,700 Wisconsin prisoners currently are
incarcerated in other states and said that number is expected to
grow to 10,000 by 2001. He said Wisconsin maintains a database of
its prisoners housed in other states that could be used to count
these inmates in their home state.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a member of the census subcommittee, urged
support for his bill (H.R. 2067) to count active duty military
personnel in the United States at their home of record instead of
where they are stationed on Census Day. The congressman said his
proposal did not represent a radical change from current Bureau
policy and that the Bureau has already changed its standard of usual
residence by counting military personnel stationed overseas in their
home of record state.
According to the Census Bureau's residency rules, which determine
where people are counted in the census, prisoners are counted at the
facility where they are incarcerated. Active duty members of the
armed forces are counted at the military installation or the
homeport of the ship to which they are assigned. "Usual residence
for census purposes," Director Prewitt testified, "is the place
where the person lives and sleeps most of the time." Making an
exception for certain prisoners and military personnel, he said,
might open a Pandora's box for other exceptions, such as where
college students or people receiving out-of-state medical treatment
are counted. During the 1990 census, Washington, D.C. challenged
the Bureau's practice of counting its inmates who are housed at a
prison in Lorton, Virginia, as residents of Virginia. The U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the
Bureau's policy in that case (District of Columbia v. U.S.
Department of Commerce, 789 F. Supp. 1179 (D.D.C. 1992).
Dr. Prewitt said H.R. 1632 does not address several operational
issues, such as whether out-of-state prisoners should be allocated
to a specific location in their home state and whether the proposal
covers federal prisoners, who he said are more likely to be
incarcerated out-of-state. The director said H.R. 2067 would require
a significant change to the procedures for counting stateside
military personnel. Members of the armed forces in the U.S. receive
a census form to complete on their own, as do most other residents
not living in a group facility.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney suggested that the Green and Ryan proposals
were "presumably introduced with the intent of boosting the
population totals for Wisconsin, which may lose a seat after the
2000 reapportionment." Both freshmen Wisconsin lawmakers denied that
their proposals were motivated by projections showing that the state
would lose its 9th congressional district after the 2000 census.
They said their goal is to promote an accurate census.
Ensuring the confidentiality of census responses: Our effort to
provide a thorough summary of proposals to count overseas Americans
and change certain residency rules has resulted in a lengthy News
Alert today. Therefore, we will report on concerns about the
confidentiality of citizenship data collected in the census in a
separate News Alert this week.
Congressional hearing planned: The House Subcommittee on the Census
will hold a field hearing in Racine, Wisconsin, on June 28. The
hearing, which is open to the public, will be held in the City
Council Chamber from 9:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Among the invited
witnesses are Governor Tommy Thompson, the mayors of Racine and
Milwaukee, and officials from Racine and Kenosha Counties.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be
directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at 202/484-2270 or, by e-mail at
terriann2k(a)aol.com. For copies of previous News Alerts and other
information, use our web site www.census2000.org . Please direct
all requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in
address/phone/fax/e-mail, to the Census 2000 Initiative at
Census2000(a)ccmc.org or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to circulate
this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.
HELP NEEDED
When I received our TIGER files and TAZ-Up program couple week ago, I started calling Election Data Services and Caliper Technical Support and was very disappointed with the state of GIS applications.
We have our TAZs in Caliper's TransCAD GIS format and our zonal configurations are primarily aggregation of 1990 Census Block Groups. I have no problem in converting these TAZ boundaries to ArcView Shape files.
In TransCAD, there is a "TAG' function to populate information from one layer to other layer based on spatial relationship. I understand that ArcView has a "SPATIAL JOIN' function doing similar job. I have tried the "TAG" function in one of our least populated county and the results were very messy assignments of TAZs to the TIGER tgrsscccp files.
Well, there must be some pros out there who can point me to the right direction. I am resisting doing manually when I already have my TAZs described nicely in a reputable GIS package.
I would welcome any suggestions and am willing to try new methods before I will assign summer interns to recreate 1012 zones for the CTPP.
Thanks.
Sweson Yang, AICP
Chief Transportation Planner
City of Indianapolis/Indianapolis MPO
(317) 327-5137 FAX: (317) 327-5103
E-mail: syang(a)IndyGov.org
Incoming query to CTPP:
1. The Size of TAZ : In your TAZ-UP manual(4-6) we have been told that "there
are no minimum size criteria for TAZs for CTPP 2000 . ... however, that census
data may be suppressed to protect confidentiality if a TAZ is too small."
What do you mean "too small"? Could your give us a number (or a range) of
RESIDENTS and WORKERS refers to this definition?
You provided us 1990 historical mean number/range for RESIDENTS and WORKERS
per TAZ. It seems that we have great flexibility to set our own criteria for
defining the size of TAZs for CTPP 2000.
To avoid possible problems caused by this ambiguity, we prefer to have a clear
criteria number or range from you.
Do you have any suggestion for us to dealing with those TAZs that
have mixed land use? Another words, if a TAZ has both RESIDENTS and WORKERS in
it, should we use RESIDENTS or WORKERS to define our TAZs?
-----------------
Response from Elaine Murakami, FHWA
The text on page 4-6 of the TAZ-UP manual is the best we can do. There is NO
strict criteria. What is NOT going to work is for each block to be it's own
TAZ. However, there are cases in large urban downtown areas where a large
building (let's say it has more than 1000 workers, but no residents) is one
block and it makes sense for this block to be its own TAZ.
There may be special situations where a TAZ has less than 400 workers or 400
residents, but we would use 400 as a target MINIMUM. Preferably, the minimum
should be closer to 600, since we are planning for the CTPP tabulations to
have 2-way and 3-way cross tabulations, and if there are too many cells in the
cross-tab, we will run into a greater likelihood that data could be
suppressed.
Areas with mixed land use, I would still use 400 as the minimum for either
workers or residents, that is, having 200 residents and 200 workers is still
going to cause a problem.
