I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Brennan's assessment. I would also take it one step further to say that the vast majority of the data from census programs are not delivered in a timely enough fashion to be truly useful. The most use I have gotten out of Census data is as a check on our own data collection or projections. It would be much more useful to limit the number of questions asked and to provide the responses in a timely fashion than to ask all of the questions I have seen in the past. Bill Austin, AICP Greater Wilmington Urban Area MPO "Laureen Brennan" <lbrennanompo(a)hawa To: <ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net> ii.rr.com> cc: Sent by: Subject: RE: [CTPP] more on what the acs owner-ctpp-news(a)ch may or may not give us rispy.net 11/21/01 06:25 PM Please respond to lbrennanompo Dear Mr. Christopher: What is the purpose of the ACS, and C2SS? Is the purpose to collect data for the sake of collecting data or seeing if the data can be collected, or is the purpose to collect usable data? If it is to collect data for data's sake, then $137m a year is a waste of money. If the purpose is to collect usable data, it should be collected and distributed at a level that is usable -- blocks, block groups, TAZs. Collecting estimates at the tract level is a waste of time and money for most users. By the time you manipulate the data and try to disaggregate it, you might as well take a guess and forget about the ACS/C2SS. If Congress wants the users to base their decisions on the data collected by the ACS and/or the census, then the ACS/Census should collect data that can be used to make decisions. For instance, (just one example) how are you going to determine Title VI and Environmental Justice neighborhoods using Tract level information? We need a Secretary of Home Data. Laureen Brennan -----Original Message----- From: owner-ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net [mailto:owner-ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net]On Behalf Of ed christopher Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 5:01 PM To: ctpp-news maillist Subject: [CTPP] more on what the acs may or may not give us thanks jeff for the info. i am sure many on the list will find it interesting. i especially liked the part about the confidentiality thresholds--especially since there is no hard evidence of how one can disclose an individual other than some assertions by census staff. Subject: Re: [CTPP] Re: Geographic coverage, C2SS & ACS Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 09:03:52 EST From: StarkRPC(a)aol.com To: edc(a)berwyned.com Mr. Christopher, I had the opportunity to attend one of the 12 regional census press conferences concerning C2SS and ACS held Nov. 14th and 15th around the county. Due to the embargoed nature of the data and some of the briefing materials I waited until today to send this. If you feel this information is useful to the list-serve, please post it. Officials did confirm that "small geographic areas" are indeed census tracts. It will probably take the full four year cycle (2004-2008) to produce this level of geography. I also asked whether or not BG' s or TAZ's would be a possibility in the future. The response was that the Census Bureau would "most likely" continue to support the planning community with special tabulations, with the added disclaimer "if confidentiality thresholds are met." Considering the size of the sample and also the size of many TAZ's I wonder what our chances are. The press conference seemed to have the tone of a pitch for Congressional funding. If funded ($137 million/year) data for areas less than 20,000 won't be available until 2008. It seems to me at least that it will be a stretch to get BG or TAZ level data for 2010. Many major newspapers have stories on the release of C2SS today. Read a couple to get a feel for what others think. My comments can be found in the local section of www.cantonrep.com. Jeff Dotson, Sr. Planner Stark County Regional Planning Commission/ Area Transportation Study (330) 451-7402 starkrpc(a)aol.com www.starkrpc.org