Finding Available Variables
Here's an example of how to use DataFerret (a Census table-building tool) to lookup variable names and their descriptions on http://dataferrett.census.gov/run.html
This is a community for Census API Developers. To improve access to data and encourage innovation, the Census Bureau has begun to provide API access to some data sets. General API information is available at www.census.gov/developers. Use this site to submit questions, provide feedback, and share ideas to help the Census Bureau as it makes data available through APIs."
Here's an example of how to use DataFerret (a Census table-building tool) to lookup variable names and their descriptions on http://dataferrett.census.gov/run.html
We've been using some of the 2010 census data (ACS5,SF1) by calling it using JSONP. After several months of functioning fine, it is throwing an error today. My code hasn't changed, is something broken on your end?
In order to understand how crime or criminal elements are embedded within different communities, it may be useful to combine neighborhood crime data with ACS demographic and housing data. There are hotspots in most cities that could be objectively analyzed to reveal patterns which may be disrupted by governmental policy. That is, if the data clearly points to consistent reliable trends.
http://blog.walkscore.com/2013/04/choicemaps-new-way-to-measure-neighborhoods/
I particularly like how they use the travel time API to show how many of a thing are withint a 20 minute walk of your location. This could be used to identify access to all sorts of public goods besides restaurants.
May 15, 1pmET, join us for a webinar for app developers interested in the American Community challenge using ACS data in the National Day of Civic hacking. See http://go.usa.gov/T6bW for details.
Many federal grants require applicants to supply Census data when responding to RFPs. Allow agencies to create a report template in AFF for applicants. This would allow for applicants to enter an address and get centroid data that was predefined by the agency. Applicants could downloaded the table in PDF form efficiently with all the available data the federal agency requires.
ACS data produces estimates on traffic, car ownership and mass transit use. Create an App that can be used my city officials to determine how many vehicles would be needed to evacuate those with out cars.
We at the PaSDC are using the Census API to populate digital dashboards we are developing. We are developing topic driven boards - we have Income and Education at this point. With the API we will be able to develop more quickly. Check our site: http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu/Data/PaSDCDashboards/tabid/2049/Default.aspx
I get an error when I try to return ACS5 Median Age data for places. The same query (URL) works for counties.
http://api.census.gov/data/2011/acs5?key=MyKey&get=B01002_001E,B01002_001M,NAME&for=county:*&in=state:02
When I query the following: http://api.census.gov/data/2010/acs5?key=MY_KEY_HERE&get=B19113_001E,NAME&for=tract:*&in=county:31,state:27 I receive the following: "There was an error while running your query. We've logged the error and we'll correct it ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience." Any idea what's up with that? (I am working on my acs.R package -- see http://eglenn.scripts.mit.edu/citystate/2013/02/major-improvements-to-acs-r-sneak-peak-at-version-1-0/ ...more »
When I query the following:
http://api.census.gov/data/2010/acs5?key=MY_KEY_HERE&get=B19113_001E,NAME&for=tract:*&in=county:31,state:27
I receive the following:
"There was an error while running your query. We've logged the error and we'll correct it ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Any idea what's up with that? (I am working on my acs.R package -- see http://eglenn.scripts.mit.edu/citystate/2013/02/major-improvements-to-acs-r-sneak-peak-at-version-1-0/ -- and this bug causes the automated downloading to crash when this result comes up.)
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The idea behind this app is to identify areas of high unemployment in relationship to risk factors that might perpetuate long-term economic hardships. The app breaks the population in three age groups: Working age adults (18-64 or 25-64) Young adults (15-24 year olds) Children (Under 18) For working-age adults, factors such as education and language ability may limit work opportunities. Child-care for single ...more »
The idea behind this app is to identify areas of high unemployment in relationship to risk factors that might perpetuate long-term economic hardships.
The app breaks the population in three age groups:
Working age adults (18-64 or 25-64)
Young adults (15-24 year olds)
Children (Under 18)
For working-age adults, factors such as education and language ability may limit work opportunities. Child-care for single parents may also pose a challenge for people trying to find full-time work.
For young adults who are not working and not going to school as well as those who have children at a young age may have difficulty entering the workforce as they get older.
Children who do not attend pre-school as well as those who live in households without adults who are proficient in English may face challenges throughout their educational careers which will disadvantage them when they enter the workforce.
Geography:
I propose organizing the app around counties, while highlighting tract-level data within those counties. I think county is a helpful unit of analysis because social services like the ones addressed here are often managed at the county level. Data for many of the tables I would use in this app are not available at the block-group level, so I suggest tracts to keep things consistent.
The visual design:
I propose starting with a broad over-view of risk factors in the entire county using a bars to show the total number of people in each risk group. I would then show a map that encodes data in two ways. In the background, I would allow the user to turn on a chloropleth layer of data such as the unemployment rate, access to broadband (from the national broadband map api), percent in poverty, median income, and percent speaks a language other than English.
On top of that layer I would allow the user to plot dots representing the number of people with risk factors (a different color for each risk factor). This way you could see where across the county people are located that need different types of services, and see if those needs are correlated with high-level economic issues.
Ideally the map would allow the user to control the colors and dot values for their selections, because that just makes life better for the user.
Finally I would present a profile table of the Nation, State, and County that gives percentages of the population with the characteristics shown here as well as other useful statistics that city planners might want to see such as race, specific languages spoken, income, housing costs, etc.
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Home Health Care has become very critical as life expectancy has gone up. There are many more elderly people who need home health care services today than in the past. My idea is to mash up Census demographic data with data from data.gov (such as https://data.medicare.gov/Home-Health-Compare/Home-Health-Care-Facilities/6jpm-sxkc) to show (relative) availability of home health services in areas with large concentration ...more »
Home Health Care has become very critical as life expectancy has gone up. There are many more elderly people who need home health care services today than in the past. My idea is to mash up Census demographic data with data from data.gov (such as https://data.medicare.gov/Home-Health-Compare/Home-Health-Care-Facilities/6jpm-sxkc) to show (relative) availability of home health services in areas with large concentration of elderly people. A nice visualization such as a heat map could be used to show suffciency/deficiency.
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We have published a very successful mobile application of economic indicators. Now help us take this app to the next level. What other indicators or mashups are possible to deliver timely information or services? How can we build upon this app to be a foundation for deriving valuable insights through big data and analytics?
Hi,
I am doing a http get http://api.census.gov/data/2010/sf1?key=user key&get=P0010001,NAME&for=state:* and this succeeds with response of 200, but the JSON elements are null. This same call used to work a few days back, now I get the following: ["P0010001","NAME","state"],["null","null","null"],["null","null","null"],...
Please help.
Thank You.
This isn't a specific what but more of a "how" and I'm not going to suggest how it could be addressed nor do I know if it has already been suggested, addressed, or used. I know the Bureau has put out some interesting projects to enhance readability of data. I was wondering if some form of advanced tool-tip mapping could be done on mouse-over. Obviously mouse-over is common but I also know that "within a circle of ...more »
This isn't a specific what but more of a "how" and I'm not going to suggest how it could be addressed nor do I know if it has already been suggested, addressed, or used.
I know the Bureau has put out some interesting projects to enhance readability of data. I was wondering if some form of advanced tool-tip mapping could be done on mouse-over. Obviously mouse-over is common but I also know that "within a circle of given radius" is also of interest. Could it be useful to create a mapping system which combines estimates within an aggregated/adjusted circular region as given by some input or sliding-scale radius?
I admit this is more of a "how" than a "what" but it did come to mind. For all I know there already exists such a product.
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Is there an API equivalent of the FactFinder search "All Places fully or partially within [County]?"
Such as http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_SF1/P1/0500000US53019.16000P
Mash up ACS demographic characteristics with business data from County Business Patterns for key services to determine underserved areas. Like this: http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/special/CBP2009/CBP2009_PeoplePerDocOffice.pdf
To help local governments better plan for disaster recovery for their residents, it would helpful to know which areas contained high risk/vulnerable individuals. These individuals might include the elderly, small children, disabled individuals, those who are language isolated, and those who do not have access to a vehicle. Creation of heat maps, or other visualizations of these populations can help emergency management ...more »
To help local governments better plan for disaster recovery for their residents, it would helpful to know which areas contained high risk/vulnerable individuals. These individuals might include the elderly, small children, disabled individuals, those who are language isolated, and those who do not have access to a vehicle. Creation of heat maps, or other visualizations of these populations can help emergency management offices across the country better prepare to minimize the possible loss of life and human suffering in the event of a natural or man-made hazard that can affect their community.
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This practical App harnesses the power of Census data and other real-time data to increase every citizen’s Quality of Life. The application uses historical crime and safety data, along with real-time crime alerts to warn local citizens of a nearby crime-in-progress. The app allows citizens to report potential crimes by snapping pictures and videos, which are shared instantly with local authorities and neighbors. Citizens ...more »
This practical App harnesses the power of Census data and other real-time data to increase every citizen’s Quality of Life. The application uses historical crime and safety data, along with real-time crime alerts to warn local citizens of a nearby crime-in-progress.
The app allows citizens to report potential crimes by snapping pictures and videos, which are shared instantly with local authorities and neighbors. Citizens can report any Quality of Life issue, such as pest infestations, excessive garbage, abandoned houses and suspicious packages.
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Abandoned houses are not only an eyesore, but also a major fire hazard and culprit for lowering local property values. This useful App harnesses the power of Census Housing Market data and local government vacant Real Estate inventory data, to address neighborhood blight caused by abandoned houses. The App allows citizens to report property abandonment into a centralized vacant property database. The App then empowers ...more »
Abandoned houses are not only an eyesore, but also a major fire hazard and culprit for lowering local property values. This useful App harnesses the power of Census Housing Market data and local government vacant Real Estate inventory data, to address neighborhood blight caused by abandoned houses.
The App allows citizens to report property abandonment into a centralized vacant property database. The App then empowers Real Estate Investors and concerned citizens, by providing the property information required to acquire and renovate the vacant real estate. The App allows collaborative Property Revitalization, by enabling multiple interested parties to work together on a single revitalization project.
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Filter local meetups by various variables within the ACS 5-year data down to the block-group (enabled by zooming into the geographic area). By mashing these two APIs (http://www.meetup.com/meetup_api/, http://www.census.gov/developers/data/) together, community builders can identify groups and leadership/influencers that exist within areas of interest. Hopefully enabling a sort of distributed knowledge management system. ...more »
Filter local meetups by various variables within the ACS 5-year data down to the block-group (enabled by zooming into the geographic area).
By mashing these two APIs (http://www.meetup.com/meetup_api/, http://www.census.gov/developers/data/) together, community builders can identify groups and leadership/influencers that exist within areas of interest. Hopefully enabling a sort of distributed knowledge management system.
In this example application, it is assumed the community builder is a proponent of ‘Asset Based Community Development’ and is seeking to find groups upon which to build to improve communities that have high rates of poverty.
I welcome any collaborators to make this rough concept better by making it your own.
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Create an interactive map showing subgroups of Hispanic populations (Cubans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Salvadorans) at the tract level for Los Angeles county using TAB10 and ACS 5 year data. A dot of varying size, based on the population in each tract, could be placed in the centroid on the polygon (tract) giving a visualization of the proportion of that subgroups population in the tract (e.g. ...more »
Create an interactive map showing subgroups of Hispanic populations (Cubans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Salvadorans) at the tract level for Los Angeles county using TAB10 and ACS 5 year data. A dot of varying size, based on the population in each tract, could be placed in the centroid on the polygon (tract) giving a visualization of the proportion of that subgroups population in the tract (e.g. 1,000 Mexicans would have a bigger dot/representation than 500 Dominicans, etc in a given tract). You could also select each tract or dot and be given the breakdown of each subgroup's population. Zoom capabilities could be warranted to focus on certain areas for the end user, as well as capabilities of creating a user-friendly, cartographically correct output in pdf format.
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A dissection of the API query string for the Census API I have posted this in another topic, however it is hard to find. Host name, API sub-folder (this triggers our api to parse the following data). http://api.census.gov/data/ This portion refers to the DataSet/Instance pair (without both, it's difficult to determine what number you want back) 2010/sf1? This determines what variables to retrieve (required, ...more »
A dissection of the API query string for the Census API
I have posted this in another topic, however it is hard to find.
Host name, API sub-folder (this triggers our api to parse the following data).
This portion refers to the DataSet/Instance pair (without both, it's difficult to determine what number you want back)
2010/sf1?
This determines what variables to retrieve (required, must exist within the variable documentation for the API)
get=P012D007,P012D008,P012D009,P012D010,P012D011,P012D012
Geography, all currently available data sets require this to return proper numbers
&for=block+group:1&in=state:2+county:170+tract:000101
The reason for this is two-fold, allowing us to limit users, as well as providing us with information as to how many people are using what dataset.
&key=(yourkeyhere)
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I'm doing a project where I require census statistics by Zip Code. I want to look at correlations between several different factors. I have addresses and zip codes.
To pull in data by zip code what would my API call look like.
I have the following query strings for the sf1_2010.xml, sf1_2000.xml, and sf1_1990.xml respectively. All query strings are the same format, just different query values: 1) http://api.census.gov/data/2010/sf1?key=a8e19a47c9c91ffa82c63c0f383ebbe8d7b3fa55&get=P0070001,NAME&for=county:*&in=state:* 2) http://api.census.gov/data/2000/sf1?key=a8e19a47c9c91ffa82c63c0f383ebbe8d7b3fa55&get=EXTCITIN,NAME&for=county:*&in=state:* ...more »
I have the following query strings for the sf1_2010.xml, sf1_2000.xml, and sf1_1990.xml respectively. All query strings are the same format, just different query values:
1) http://api.census.gov/data/2010/sf1?key=a8e19a47c9c91ffa82c63c0f383ebbe8d7b3fa55&get=P0070001,NAME&for=county:*&in=state:*
2) http://api.census.gov/data/2000/sf1?key=a8e19a47c9c91ffa82c63c0f383ebbe8d7b3fa55&get=EXTCITIN,NAME&for=county:*&in=state:*
3) http://api.census.gov/data/1990/sf1?key=a8e19a47c9c91ffa82c63c0f383ebbe8d7b3fa55&get=CONCITCC,NAME&for=county:*&in=state:*
Query string #1 works like a charm and returns me data. Query string #2 gives me the exception "There was an error while running your query. We've logged the error and we'll correct it ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience." Finally, for Query string #3, I got the error ""error: error: unknown variable 'NAME'"
These query strings were copied and pasted directly into the browsers url box. Interestingly, when I removed from Query string #3 the "NAME" token, I did get a result set, but data was lacking in one of the fields. A partial sample of the result set:
[["CONCITCC","state","county"],
["","1","001"],
["","1","003"],
["","1","005"],
You will notice that the first column is blank. Is there something I'm missing?
Thanks.
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