Goal: Create thematic map of PERCENT of WORKERS who DRIVE TO WORK ALONE.

Issues:

• Using 2000 US Census data
  • Finding the desired variable
    • What census variable: Summary File 3 : Technical Documentation (.pdf)
    • Which dataset on disk: 2000 Census Variable Locator
  • Identifying appropriate summary level (150 for block groups via the state-county-tract-blockgroup hierarchy)
  • Normalizing counts to compute percents (notes about normalizing data)
  • Copy M:\data\census2k\lab5_ma.mdb to a LOCAL drive (e.g., C:\usertemp or C:\temp) - it is ~150 MBytes
• Using MS-Access
  • Importing raw text files from Census into MS-Access (optional)
  • Developing Queries involving table joins (using lab5_ma.mdb in the census2k folder in the class data locker)
  • Accessing MS-Access tables from ArcMap
  • Beware: Your MS-Access database must be in the older Access 2003-03 format (*.mdb) in order for ArcMap ver. 9.3 to see te Access database.

Useful Resources :

• Wednesday's "Making Sense of the Census" lecture notes (and MS-Access demonstration)
• The Census Bureau's technical documention: Summary File 3 : Technical Documentation (.pdf)
  • Chapter 2: How to Use This File - General intro and detailed explanation of geographic summary level.
  • Chapter 3: Subject Locator - Index designed to quickly identify the STF3 tables you may need (e.g., "median earnings" is in variable P85). Each table variable is listed alphabetically.
  • Chapter 5: List of Tables (Matrices) - Sequential list of tables (e.g., P85) - often easier to find variables here than in Chapter 3 if you use the 'find tool' to search the PDF file of this chapter for keywords. E.g., search for keywords like "Means of Transportation to Work" and "Persons 16 years and over".
  • Chapter 7:
    • Identification Section : Explains data encoding (e.g., state name abreviations)
    • Table (Matrix) Section - Data dictionary for specific STF3 columns (e.g., column P085002 reports "median earnings in 1999 dollars for males 16 years and over with earnings")
• 2000 Census Variable Locator - cross-reference table showing which census variables are included in each of the 76 data files
  • E.g., variable P35 is included in the raw data file st00007.uf3 (for Mass, this is MA00007.UF3).
  • We have imported this raw data file into MS-Access as the table MA00007 within lab5_ma.mdb (in addition to the tables ma00003 and mageo which are described below).