ESP 171 Urban and Regional Planning Demographic Report Due Tuesday, 5/10 at noon Purpose The starting point for planning is an assessment of current conditions the answer to the question where are we now. Planners use many different techniques to assess current conditions, including inventories of existing facilities and surveys of residents. Planners also make use of existing data sources, particularly the decennial U.S. Census and the annual American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is particularly useful for providing detailed information about the community s population as well as its housing stock. Planners regularly take a look at the ACS data to gauge changes within the community, and an analysis of ACS data is often the first step in the process of updating the General Plan. In this assignment, you will write a 3-page single-spaced demographic report for a city of your choice. Let s say that you are an intern at the city. The city is considering an update to its General Plan, and the planning director your boss would like to know what the ACS shows about important issues in the city. She has given you the task of preparing a demographic report that summarizes selected data from the ACS. Her plan is to share this report with the Planning Commission and to post the report on the Planning Department s website. Task 1. Pick a city Start by picking a city. You probably want to use the city you looked at in Exercise 2. It is OK to pick a different city if you want, but it should be a city you know something about. Task 2. Think about the issues Think about the important issues your city is currently facing or may be facing in the future. Go back and look at the city s General Plan to see what issues are highlighted there. Try to come up with 5-7 issues so you ve got some options for the next task. Task 3. Look for ACS data related to these issues Now, using the instructions provided by your TAs, go to the ACS and see what kind of data you can find related to your issues (see Appendix A for back-up instructions if you run into trouble). (Note: I suggest using the 3-year or 5-year ACS, especially if your city is relatively small. For basic population characteristics, such as age, gender, or race, it is generally better to use the 2010 Census, but it is OK for this paper to use the ACS for these characteristics as well. See Appendix B for background on the Census.) For some issues, it will be pretty obvious as to what data are relevant. For example, if the issue is an aging population, then looking at population by age could be useful. For other issues, it will not be obvious as to what data are relevant, but see if you can find something that at least indirectly relates to the issue. For example, if sea level rise is a concern for your city, you might look at the share of workers living in your city who drive alone to work. For some issues, the ACS might have several different kinds of data you could examine. See Appendix C for suggestions. Based on your search, narrow down your list of issues to three. Task 4. Download data and prepare tables Once you ve narrowed down your list of issues and found relevant data in the ACS, you need to download the data and prepare tables for the report. You will want to compare your city to the state to help the reader understand whether your city is high or low, good or bad. (Note: If you d like, you can choose a different place for comparison, e.g. the county, or another city, but if you go this route, make sure that you have a good rationale for your choice.) In American FactFinder, choose your city and the state as geographies, then find the
tables you need and download these following the instructions from your TA (and see Appendix A for back-up instructions). Now take the raw data from the ACS and turn it into interesting and useful tables. Use this following format very professional. Make sure that you include the source at the bottom of the table, and use single-spacing for the table. Table 1. [Descriptive Title], [City Name] vs. California [Characteristic 1] [Characteristic 2] [etc.] Source: [ACS file] California [City Name] Create one table per issue, for a total of 3 tables. In some cases, you might want to combine data from more than one ACS table into the one table for that issue. Think about what data or statistics most effectively convey the point you want to make. For example, if you want to make the point that people in your city drive a lot, then you could include in the table the share of workers who drive-alone to work. If you want to make the point that the population of your city is older that the population of the state overall, you could include in the table the share of population age 65 and over and you could also include the median age. You do not have to include all of the data available, e.g. shares for all modes of travel to work, or shares for all age ranges. Task 5. Write the report Once you have prepared your tables, you are ready to write your report. Your report must be no more than 3- pages single-spaced (with 12-point font and 1-inch margins; skip lines between paragraphs; use single-spacing for the tables, too). Think about your audience, especially the citizens of your city who might read this report. Start with an introduction that gives an overview of the issues you ll be examining. You might want to reference the General Plan. Then write a section for each of your issues. Each of these sections should present and discuss the data in the tables. Do more than just present the numbers; help the reader understand the significance of the numbers. End the paper with a short conclusion that provides your assessment for the city for these issues. Be sure to give your report a title followed by your name and the date. You don t need a title page just put title, name, and date centered at the top of the first page. Be sure to insert page numbers. Also be sure to include a consistent, properly formatted reference list that includes the ACS file that you used, as well as any other items you cite. For guidance on how to cite the ACS (and the Census), check these sources: - http://www.odl.state.ok.us/usinfo/pubs/census-choosing.pdf - http://libguides.bentley.edu/content.php?pid=176859&sid=1491141 (scroll down to U.S. Census) Whichever format you decide to use, be consistent. For the URL for either the ACS or the Census, use: http://factfinder2.census.gov. Here are some example citation format options: United States Census Bureau (2010). Sex by Age. Decennial Census. Retrieved from http://factfinder2.census.gov (24 April 2016). United States Census Bureau (2011). Means of Transportation to Work. American Community Survey (Xyear estimates). Retrieved from http://factfinder2.census.gov (24 April 2016).
Generalized form: United States Census Bureau (Year data produced). Name of table. Census survey used (Year of estimate if from ACS). Retrieved from http://factfinder2.census.gov (Date downloaded) Final report: Submit via SmartSite by noon on Tuesday, May 10. Reports will be graded based on the thoughtfulness of the use of ACS data to illustrate the issues, the quality of the tables, and the clarity of the writing.
Appendix A: American FactFinder Instructions: 1. Find the web site for American FactFinder, the Census Bureau s data access system. Type http://factfinder.census.gov/ into your favorite web browser (current versions will work best). 2. Click on the Advanced Search button. In the Advanced Search page, you have two options on how to find data. Click on the Topics button on the left side of the page. You will notice several topics you can select. Clicking on a plus sign will expand the menu to show you additional sub-topics that you can also select. Alternatively, you can type a subject into the Topic or Table name box under Box #1. For example, enter population and click Go. 3. An initial set of search results will appear that are related to population. Columns indicate the code name for each table, the text name of each table, and where the table came from (such as American Community Survey or Census Summary File). Note at the top, there are three tables that are each called Table B01003: Total Population. They are all from the same year of the American Community Survey, but they are counting a different number of years worth of ACS data. 4. Next, you will need to specify which geographic areas you d like data for. In this example, we will start with California. Click on the Geographies button on the left side of the screen. Click on the Name tab. You can type in a location in the Enter a geography name box. However, California already appears as one of the default search results. You can refine your data to California by either clicking on the word California, or by clicking on the box to the left of California, and then hitting the Add button ( ) underneath Geography Results. Next, select a city of your choice that you would also like to pull data for. Click on City or Town under Geography Filter Options and then enter the name of your city into the geography search box and click go. When it appears, either click on the name on the city, or click the box to the left of the city name and hit the Add button. Notice in the Your Selections box in the upper left corner of your screen, both your topic of population, and geographies of California and the city of your choice now appear. When you are done, close the Select Geographies pop-up window in the upper right corner of the window, or by re-clicking on the Geographies Button. 5. After closing the geographies window, you will be returned to the Search Results display with the available populations table. In this example, we will refine these results further and look for a specific table. In the Refine your search results box, enter P12 under topic or table name and click go.
A set of refined search results should now appear. Find the entry for Table P12, Sex by Age, 2010 SF1 100% Data. This data is from the 2010 Decennial Census, Summary File 1. Click on the name of the table to open the dataset. 6. Table P12 should now appear showing Sex by Age data for California and the city of your choice side by side. While you can see the data on the census website, to work with and manipulate the data you will want to download the data onto a spreadsheet. Staying on the same page, look for the Download button at the top of the screen. Select Download and in the pop-up window choose Microsoft Excel (.xls) for the format, then click OK. You will get a message that says Your file is complete. Click on Download again to save the file to your computer. *If you cannot find your saved file, look in your Downloads folder, or check if a button appears with your file at the bottom of your web browser. 7. Open the downloaded file in Excel (or another spreadsheet program). Use Excel to construct a table that compares your city to the state. Look at the data in the spreadsheet. You ll see population counts for different age segments, separately for men and for women. For your table, you will need to do some calculations with the raw data. Think carefully about the appropriate denominator for the percentage that you are calculating! In this example, you would want to construct and complete a table that might include these categories: Table 1. Elderly population, [City Name] vs. California Total Population Population 65 and over Percent of population that is 65 and over Of the population that is 65 and over, percent that is female Of the population that is 65 and over, percent that is male Source: US Census (2010) [City Name] California TROUBLESHOOTING: If you see a little triangle in the upper left corner of the data cells, you will need to convert the raw data from text format to numerical format to make calculations. Highlight all of the cells with data, click on the little exclamation mark near the top left cell, and then click the convert to number. Do your calculations in Excel (or another spreadsheet program)! Don t use a calculator or your phone (Although I might be impressed if you do it longhand). Spreadsheet skills are something you should develop.
8. The dataset you just downloaded is from the Decennial Census. In this example, we are now going to repeat the process, but with data from the American Community Survey. You can proceed two ways: If your earlier census data webpage is still open, hit the back button on your browser to return to the results page. In the upper left of the page, under Your Selections note that you are currently searching the topics Population and Table P12 for California and your city. Click on the blue X button next to Population and P12 to remove them from your search. You can also start from scratch. Go back to the Fact Finder main page and click on Advanced Search. Click on the Geographies button and reselect California and the city of your choice. 9. In this example, the topic we will look at for your second table is on modes of transportation to work, specifically Table B08301. Enter this into the Refine Your Search Results box and click Go. Notice you have many different tables B08301. The choices vary by year published, and by the number of years used in the estimates. You will want to work with the most recent set of data, but you have a choice for number of years. One-year estimates are fresher, but have a smaller sample size. Five-year estimates include older data, but have a smaller margin of error. At minimum, if your city is small, I would recommend not using 1-year data. If the margin error is sufficiently high, the census sometimes does not present that data. Click on the name of the table for whichever estimate you choose to use. 10. Repeat Step 6 to download your table into Excel. When you open the dataset, you would want to transform the data to create a table that includes categories such as these: Table 2. Means of transportation to work, [City Name] vs. California [City Name] Total Workers 16 and over Percent drove alone Percent public transit Percent walked Percent bicycle Percent taxicab, motorcycle, or other Source: US Census American Community Survey [X]-year estimates (201X) California
Appendix B: Census Background Article I Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States calls for an actual enumeration of the people every ten years, to be used for apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives among the states. The decennial Census is conducted every ten years, on April 1 in years ending in a zero. Besides providing the basis for congressional redistricting, Census data are used in many other ways: the distribution of funds for government programs such as Medicaid; planning the right locations for schools, roads, and other public facilities; and for evaluating the environmental justice implications of proposed policies (see below). Most Census data are available for many levels of geography, including states, counties, cities and towns, ZIP codes, census tracts and blocks, but they are not reported at the level of individuals or households. Here s how the census worked in 2000. There were two versions of the Census form. The long form was sent to a sample of households, while the short form was sent to the remaining households. Overall, about 1 in 7 households received the long form, which includes more detailed questions about the members of the household and the housing unit in which they live. Short-form questions included: age, sex, hispanic or latino origin, race, tenure (whether home is owned or rented), and vacancy characteristics. Long-form questions include income, education, work status, occupation, travel to work, immigration status, country of origin, housing unit value, housing unit rent, number of rooms, and so on. These data are an incredibly valuable source of information about population and housing characteristics, and they are widely used in planning efforts of all sorts. But asking even a sample of people to complete the long-form had become problematic. So after the 2000 Census, the Bureau adopted a new approach. Starting in 2010, the decennial census includes only the short form, to be completed by every household 10 questions, 10 minutes as the ads said. The detailed information that used to be collected in the long form is now collected through the American Community Survey, which surveys a much smaller sample of U.S. households each year. This is good in some ways we get updated data more frequently than every 10 years. But is difficult in other ways the results are less certain, given the smaller sample size, and the Census Bureau has to have a large enough sample from a given community before it will release the results. That means that the data are available for larger cities but not yet for smaller cities.
Appendix C: Table and Statistics Suggestions Some suggestions for tables to download from the ACS: Year of Entry for the Foreign-Born Population (B05007) Means of Transportation to Work by Selected Characteristics (S0802) Travel Time to Work (B08303) Sex by Educational Attainment for the Population 18 years and over(b15001) Median Household Income in the past 12 months in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars (B19013) Per Capita Income in the Past 12 months (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars)(b19301) Poverty Status in the Past 12 months by Sex by Age (B17001) Median Number of Rooms (B25018) Units in Structure (B25024) Median Year Structure Built (B25035) Median Contract Rent (B25058) Median Value (for Owner-Occupied units)(b25077) Example statistics you might calculate: Percent non-citizens (number who are not citizens divided by the total population) Percent of foreign-born immigrating recently (Number arriving after xxxx year divided by total number of foreign born) Percent of workers commuting by car versus public transportation, etc. (total commuting by bus, for instance, divided by the total number of workers) Percent of housing structures that are detached single-family homes (Number of housing units with 1 unit in structure, detached, divided by the total number of housing units) Percent over or under a certain age (sum of the number of people in the age categories you want to include, divided by the total population) Percent of each race (number in a particular racial category divided by the total population) Percent Hispanic/Latino origin (number in category, divided by the total population) Percent of households renting versus owning where they live (number of owner-occupied housing units divided by total number of occupied housing units) Percent of housing units that are vacant (number of vacant housing units divided by the total number of housing units) Percent of population that is foreign-born (number born outside the U.S. divided by the total population) Population density (total population divided by total land area, you may want to convert it to square miles from square meters) 8