GEOSPATIAL DATA REPORT : Finding and Using GIS Data

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2009/tgrshp2009.html
(or directly from http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/)

2009 version just came out on 10/1/09! Previous versions are also linked from this site.

The TIGER/Line Shapefiles are extracts containing selected geographic and cartographic information from the Census Bureau’s MAF/TIGER® database. Unlike the previous Cartographic Boundary Files site, this site includes block boundary files as well as hydrography, transportation/streets and landmark data files. Users can also download multiple TIGER/Line Shapefiles at a time via this FTP site.

Again, these files contain no demographic information but are designed to be used with decennial census population and housing data as well as other related federal datasets.

http://www2.census.gov/cgi-bin/shapefiles/national-files

(or http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2008/)

School district boundaries can be found from the Census cartographic boundary files sites for most, but not all, states. However, the levels of boundaries are kind of limited. For example, in Chicago, we have a large school district, Chicago Public Schools (CPS). However, within the CPS district, there are so called “attendance” areas or zones which determine which “neighborhood school” a child should attend, and such “attendance” zone boundaries determined by a local school district (this case, CPS) aren’t available from the Census site (I believe – but I haven’t checked all school district files, so I could be wrong!)

So, if you need more detailed school boundaries within a district, like the attendance/neighborhood school boundaries in Chicago, you need to obtain data from a local school district. In Chicago, CPS has developed a very nice interactive mapping site, School Locator (http://schoollocator.cps.k12.il.us/), where parents can find a neighborhood school and special schools, and small boundary/zone data can be obtained from the site (or ask them.)

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/usgrid/

“The U.S. Census Grids provide raster data sets that include not only population and housing counts, but a wide variety of socioeconomic characteristics. These gridded data sets transform irregularly shaped census block and block group boundaries into a regular surface – a raster grid – for faster and easier analysis. Data sets are currently available for the year 2000. Data sets for 1990 are scheduled for release in early 2007.” Accessed on 1/19/09.

Visit also Berkeley/Penn Urban & Environmental Modeler’s Dataset for similar raster datasets.

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/plue/cenguide.html

I prefer to use block data for community analysis as long as data is available. You probably know you can obtain 1990 & 2000 census block level data (SF1/STF1 and also boundary files) quite easily, but if you want to map 1980 data at a block level, you need this CIESIN’s archival dataset!

The Archive of Census Related Products is a collection of georeferenced data files containing census information. 1980 Census boundary files, including blocks, are available from here in the BNA format – see under “Boundary Files“. Once you download BNA files, you can convert the BNA files to MapInfo MIF format files using BNA2MIF.exe (DOS executable – download from ftp://ftp.ciesin.org/pub/census/usa/contrib/bna2mif/), and then convert MIF to Shapefiles using ArcView tool, MIF to Shape (available in ArcView 3.x or ArcCatalog’s ArcView 8x Tools set.)

Here is how the BNA2MIF.exe works:

1. Save bna2mif.exe and input files (.bna file) in the same directory.
2. Open a command prompt (cmd.exe), change directory (cd) to the directory where bna2mif.exe and input files reside.
3. Run (syntax: start) the executable using the following syntax:

Syntax: (program)   (input)             (output)
bna2mif     bxxxxx.bna     bxxxxx

4. This will generate:  bxxxxx.mif and bxxxxx.mid, MapInfo import files. Note: Input and output files do not necessarily need to have the same name.

<Example>
C:\>cd C:\thedirectory
C:\thedirecoty>start bna2mif bxxxxx.bna output

Once you have the 1980 block boundary files, all you need is accompanying attribute data. Obtain 1980 block statistics attribute data, Census of Population and Housing 1980 Summary Tape File 1B, from ICPSR, http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07975

http://www.esri.com/data/download/census2000_tigerline/

Another resource for GIS census data. TIGER base line data, streets & railroads, and also detailed boundary files, blocks, (not available from the US Census boundary files site above) are available. Users can also download accompanying basic demographic and housing data from the 2000 Census Summary File 1 for various geographic levels.

Click on “Preview and Download” on the left to access the files.

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/

“The boundary files available here are selected generalized extracts from the Census Bureau’s TIGER geographic database and are designed for use in a Geographic Information System (GIS) or similar mapping system. These are not map images. They have been developed for various internal Census Bureau projects and have been made available here to the general public on an “as is” basis.”

These files do not contain any demographic information but are designed to be used with decennial census population and housing data as well as other US federal datasets.

See also the U.S. Census 2007 TIGER/Line® Shapefiles page (new!)