Working With Census Data

 

GOALS

 

Through this lab exercise, you will learn to:

-         download data for selected geographic areas from the Census Bureau website for two time periods (1990 and 2000)

-         import this data into a spreadsheet program (Excel)

-         organize and summarize the data to provide an interesting AND accurate description of the selected area

 

  1. Use Internet Explorer and enter the Census Bureau website: www.census.gov

 

 

  1. Enter the American Fact Finder page by clicking on the appropriate icon on the left frame of the main page.  If you are successful, the screen will look like this:

 

 

Click on Data Sets. You will find that by default the radio button is set to Summary File 1. Learn more about this particular dataset by clicking the appropriate item on the bottom right. Read through this page briefly.

 

 

  1. Next, click on Quick Tables and select geography type State, chose the state of California and add it to the current geography selections. Then press .

 

You are now given a list of tables to chose from. At this point, we just want to get an overview, so select DP-1: Profile of general Demographic Characteristics. Add it to the current table selections.

 

 

Upon clicking , you should now see a set of summary statistics that describe the state of California as a whole. Now, answer the following question:

 

Q1: The caption above the table states that this data is a 100 Percent Data.  What is the difference between a 100% count and a sample count?

 

  1. You are now ready to download and save this file.  Create a new folder on your U: drive called U:\GTECH201\Lab07.

Go up to the top of the webpage and select the download option within the PRINT/DOWNLOAD choice.

 

  1. You will be given a number of options and to understand the differences, you will perform this step in at least two variations.

 

 

Once you press the OK button, a window will pop up with the following text: “To help protect your security, IE blocked this site from downloading files to your computer. Click here for options…”. Click as asked and then choose the ‘Download File’ option. This is a nuisance, which we will try to get rid off in the next weeks. In the mean time, this window will pop up whenever you want to download census data here in our lab facilities and you will have to make two extra mouse clicks.

 

a)                 Choose the default option (.csv) and save the file to your U: drive. In the process of saving, rename the file to CAdem.csv for California demographics.

b)                 Next go again to Print/Download and this time select the Microsoft Excel option. Rename the file as part of your save operation to CAdem.zip.

 

Use the MS Explorer to got to your U: drive and double-click one of the .csv file to load it into MS Excel. The double-click the .zip file and extract the first Excel file to CAdem.xls. Double-click on the latter and compare the two file contents.

 

Q2: Describe the difference between the two ways of organizing data that is exemplified by the two files that you just loaded into Excel.

 

6.     Now that you understand how to access census data, let’s change the geographic selection to get the data for the original research question. Change the geography of your selection by clicking on Geography in the You are here row near the top of your browser window.

 

7.     Change the geography type to Census Tract,

Select the state of California and the county Los Angeles

Now you are ready to select census tracts. Each student in this class will download and use a different set of census tracts to complete the rest of this lab exercise.

 

Our area of study is a place called Hawaiian Gardens in South East Los Angeles.  This area adjoins Orange County and has come to our attention because it is one of the hot spots for hate crime in the nation. The following online map is how Microsoft MapPoint depicts the area,

 

 

while the next is how US Census depicts our area of interest.

 

 

Our goal is to use census data from 1990 and 2000 to describe the demographic profile of the area, focusing on change.  After you have examined the demographic profile (variables of age and race), you may want to consider two other variables, income and education to complete your description.  But, first things first.  By the end of the hour, you must download and save 1990 and 2000 data for the two tracts that you have been assigned.

 

  1. First, remove California from your set of current geography selections. Then add your census tracts following the lookup table beneath:

 

 

Name

Census Tracts

1

Arboleda

5545.11; 5545.12

2

Blair

5545.13; 5545.14

3

Camacho

5545.15; 5545.16

4

Compitello

5545.17; 5545.18

5

Dadamo

5545.19; 5545.21

6

Damas

5546;  5547

7

Flowers

5548.01; 5548.02

8

Holmes

5549;  5551.02

9

Hsiao

5552.02;  5552.11

10

Ibraheem

5552.11;  5552.12

11

Jarama

5545.21;  5545.22

12

Kess

5545.19; 5545.21

13

Konishi

5546;  5547

14

Lewis

5548.01; 5548.02

15

Mohan

5549;  5551.02

16

Munoz

5552.02;  5552.11

17

Ng

5545.17; 5545.18

18

Ortiz

5545.15; 5545.16

19

Rechner

5545.13; 5545.14

20

Recio

5545.11; 5545.12

21

Roberts

5552.11;  5552.12

22

Rodrigues

5545.13; 5545.14

23

Rozmus

5545.17; 5545.18

24

Santiago

5548.01; 5548.02

25

Stark

5546;  5547

26

Thomas

5545.19; 5545.21

27

Urata

5545.15; 5545.16

28

Zaromatidis

5552.11;  5552.12

 

 

Depending on the time of the day, the US Census web server may be a bit busy. In this case you will the following icon:

 

  1. For the 2000 data, download and save the data as [lastname]_2000. Remember that when you click the .xls option, you are actually downloading a zip file that contains the Excel spreadsheet.

 

For the 1990 data, you will have to go back all the way to the All Data Sets option in .

 

Go to the bottom of the page and select 1990 STF 1 data.

 

 

  1. Now you go through exactly the same sequence of steps for selecting your census tracts as for the 2000 data. Make sure that when you save the files to your local U:\ drive, you change the name to reflect it being 1990 data.

 

10. Once you have downloaded all the data you think you will need, first spend some time familiarizing yourself with the data set. Then proceed to answer by answering the following questions

 

Q3a:  What is the population of your two census tracts combined (i) in 1990 and (ii) in 2000?

Q3b:  What is the racial breakdown in the two time periods for your two census tracts combined? (Five Groups – White, Black, Asian, Native American, Other)? In other words, what is the ratio of one race versus another?

Q3c:  What is the age profile/breakdown in the two time periods for the combined census tracts? (Choose an appropriate age breakdown that is comparable across time periods)?

Q3d:  Are the two tracts you aggregated similar to each other or completely different? Explain, e.g., in what respect are they similar, in what respect are they different?

 

Compile all your answers in a little text file (e.g. using Notepad) and submit them to Jing Li either as an email attachment or by copy and pasting your answers into the body of your email. Make sure that you provide a telling subject header for your email message and that you send a copy to yourself. Do not consider your submission to be complete before you have received your own email message.