Maps ❤️ Census
By: Elijah Zarlin
Every ten years, the U.S. census produces an extraordinary dataset. The data is comprehensive, with the goal of counting every person in America. And the data is located by physical address, allowing aggregation by specific geographic areas — blocks, block groups, tracts, counties.
In effect, the census provides an incredibly granular map of who and where people in America are. And this data provides an invaluable baseline source of context and insight, both on its own, and when joined with other data.
We asked a few people who build maps using census data to share what the census means to them and the insights it makes possible. We want to hear your story, too. Share it on twitter with #mapslovecensus and we’ll retweet our faves. (And don’t forget to complete your 2020 Census!)
Aaron Williams, The Washington Post
“The U.S. census is arguably the most important dataset in the country. It’s how politicians, researchers, journalists and others understand the vast complexity of the American population. Many stories, including my analysis of racial segregation in the U.S., would have been impossible without it.”
Ruth Buck, MGGG Redistricting Lab
“Census data informs nearly all of our research at the MGGG Redistricting Lab and are an integral part of our tool Districtr. The census is the main source of detailed demographic data, which are used to ensure that districts are population-balanced and comply with the Voting Rights Act. To compare to voting patterns, you have to match census geography to election precincts, which is why we have to treat each state as its own data challenge. With Districtr, everyone from state legislatures to constituents can easily interact with this data, regardless of technical expertise, to have a seat at the table in the redistricting process.”
Eric Myott and Will Stancil, Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, University of Minnesota Law School
“American Neighborhood Change in the 21st Century mapped gentrification and neighborhood economic decline across the entire United States between 2000 and 2016. The underlying data in this project was racial and income data produced by the U.S. Census Bureau. Most studies of gentrification have focused exclusively on large cities. By relying on a national dataset that included all populated areas, we were able to determine gentrification is a comparatively unusual phenomenon in American neighborhoods, and that concentration of low-income families is a far more prevalent trend, particularly in often-overlooked suburbs.”
Lam Thuy Vo, Buzzfeed News:
“I’m a reporter who is interested in systemic issues that may affect some demographics disproportionately. Statistics provided by the Census Bureau about ethnic minorities, household income, and home value have been essential for me to ask and answer questions that affect people’s everyday lives.
One of the examples for that is the story They Played Dominoes Outside Their Apartment For Decades. Then The White People Moved In And Police Started Showing Up. In 2018, examples of white gentrifiers calling authorities on their predominantly Black and Latinx neighbors abounded. People on the internet and in particular people of color were highlighting a lived experience that oftentimes escaped the gaze of editors who may not see something newsworthy in a problem that’s plagued minorities for decades.
We wanted to help quantify this issue for our audiences. By parsing through 17 million 311 complaints and several decades worth of census data, we found that neighborhoods where the white population increased saw higher-than-average rates of ‘quality of life’ complaints, leading to over-policing of long-term residents.”
Joe Germuska, Northwestern University Knight Lab
“Census data is an amazing resource for journalists who want to tell the story of their community. With it, they can put national stories into a local context, or look for leads for new reporting. We designed Census Reporter to make using census data as easy as possible. For folks who just need quick facts, they can visit profile pages for cities, counties, states, school districts, congressional districts and more. For those who want to do more in-depth analysis, Census Reporter makes it easy to find and download data, as CSV, Excel, GeoJSON or shapefile.”
Daniel Wolfe, Quartz:
“What story does your neighborhood’s life expectancy tell? uses CDC data and analysis based on census, American Community Survey, and NVSS data. In the CDC’s small-area life expectancy model, they used population data from the decennial census as well as the ACS. Census data was key in not only a better sample for their model, but reducing variance in their estimates. This in turn benefits us in understanding what local area and built environment impacts have on life expectancy.”
James Minton, Hyperobjekt
“Having Census data as part of The Eviction Lab map has allowed users to see and investigate possible correlations between eviction rates and other factors like racial demographics, rent burden, and more. When the data sources are overlaid, certain patterns jump out immediately — like an “eviction belt” across the southeast US, concentrated in areas with large African American populations and appearing to follow the trail of the Great Migration northward. Being able to make these kinds of connections with census data has helped researchers, activists, and policymakers direct their efforts in the right direction to understand and address the eviction crisis.”
Justin Madron, Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond
“The census has always been about power and representation. Because of the infamous three-fifths clause in the Constitution, 18th and 19th-century white southerners needed census takers to count enslaved people. But they resisted collecting too much information about them, particularly their places of birth. They worried that the data would be used by abolitionists to further document and denounce the massive scale of the domestic slave trade that tore children from their parents and spouses from each other. Still, with a bit of modelling the census data they did collect can be used to reveal the changing spatial contours of the forced migration of enslaved people in the five decades before the Civil War. The Forced Migration of Enslaved People project, we hope, illuminates one of the most important and terrible migrations in US history: how enslavers sold, bought, and moved hundreds of thousands of enslaved people to the South to fuel American economic development through cotton production.”
Kyle E. Walker, Professor of Geography, Texas Christian University
“Access to high-quality demographic data is essential for understanding the varying needs of local communities, which is especially important in situations like the current public health crisis. tidycensus is an R package that gives analysts and mapmakers direct access to US Census Bureau demographic and spatial data. The package has been used by researchers, nonprofits, and businesses to make decisions and understand their communities better.”
What does census data mean to you? How has it helped your projects? Share your story on twitter with #mapslovecensus, and share these resources to help count everyone in the 2020 Census:
- Complete your census online.
- Get involved with census partner and volunteer groups.
- The ACLU’s Frequently Asked Questions on the National Census.
Elijah Zarlin - Brand marketing - Mapbox | LinkedIn
Maps feature data from Mapbox and OpenStreetMap and their data partners.
What the census means to maps and the people who build them was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.