American Community Survey (ACS) Data

McNair Project

American Community Survey (ACS) Data
Project Information
Project Title	American Community Survey (ACS) Data
Owner	Jeemin Sim
Start Date
Deadline
Primary Billing
Notes
Has project status
Copyright © 2016 edegan.com. All Rights Reserved.

See also:

• PostGIS Installation
• Urban Start-up Agglomeration

Notes

The approach below, using American Fact Finder, seems to be the most standard. However, it does look like it works if you choose the right data year -- 2012 ACS 1-year estimates or 5 year estimates -- seems to have all of the information needed. See the Fact Finder Download Center. Note that the 1 yr estimates are only available for places with populations of 65,000 people or more, the 1yr supplemental estimates cover down to places with 20,000 people or more, and the 5 yr estimates cover a whopping 29,573 places [1], as compared with just 630 for the 1yr and 2,323 or the 1yr supplements.

One can download the PUMS data for 2017 here: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/pums/2017/1-Year/ However, PUMS is only available for places in the Public Use Microdata Areas, which have a population 100,000 or more.

And state-by-state, it looks possible to get the latest data profiles (2013-2017 5 yr estimates) but not place by place as data, just as an aggregate: https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/data-profiles/

For just population, also see: http://census.ire.org/data/bulkdata.html. This seems to be based on the 2000 or 2010 census data only.

File Location

Python Script to pull certain columns from excel file:

• E:\McNair\Projects\Agglomeration\ACS_Downloaded_Data\pullCertainColumns.py

SQL Commands to create tables and load data:

• E:\McNair\Projects\Agglomeration\ACS_Downloaded_Data\DataLoading_SQL_Commands

Excel files downloads from ACS website:

• E:\McNair\Projects\Agglomeration\ACS_Downloaded_Data\csvFiles

Steps to Obtain Data

1) Go to https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/download_center.xhtml
2) Select 'I know the dataset or table(s) that I want to download.'
3) Press Next
4) For 'Select a program:' choose
       'American Community Survey'
5) For 'Select a dataset and click Add to Your Selections:' choose
       '<YEAR OF INTEREST> ACS 1-year estimates'
6) Press 'Add To Your Selections'
7) Press Next
8) For 'Select a geographic type:' choose
       'Place - 160'
9) For Select a state:
       Don't choose a state, as we wish to download all.
10) For 'Select one or more geographic areas...' choose
       'All Places within United States and Puerto Rico'
11) Press Next

For the new pull, I used 2017 5yr Estimates.

Tables Pulled

S1501 EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
S2301 EMPLOYMENT STATUS
B01003 TOTAL POPULATION
B02001 RACE
B07201 GEOGRAPHICAL MOBILITY
B08303 TRAVEL TIME TO WORK
B19013 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
B19053 SELF-EMPLOYMENT INCOME IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS FOR HOUSEHOLDS
B19083 GINI INDEX OF INCOME INEQUALITY
B25003 TENURE
B25105 MEDIAN MONTHLY HOUSING COSTS
B28011 INTERNET SUBSCRIPTIONS IN HOUSEHOLD
G001 GEOGRAPHIC IDENTIFIERS

At the end, I chose to have full descriptions but not geographic components.

Notes on Data

• Educational Attainment are based on population of age 25 years or higher (except for years 2010, 2011, and 2012 - that's why there are fewer entries in those tables)

To Access Downloaded Tables

1) ssh researcher@128.42.44.181 on terminal
2) cd /bulk
3) psql tigertest

To view all tables:
\dt

To view contents of a table:
\d (Table Name)