Abstract
U.S. Census Grids: Beyond Tables and Polygons Track: Census and Geodemographics Author(s): Gregory Yetman Working with U.S. Census data in vector format presents a number of challenges, which can be addressed by converting the data to raster format. These challenges include boundary changes between census years that hinder temporal analysis, difficulties in assigning population from irregularly shaped census units to geographies like watersheds or disaster zones, and computational issues that preclude fine resolution analyses on a continental scale. This paper will explore the use of demographic data in raster format to overcome these problems. A free, downloadable data set of census grids for 1990 and 2000 will be presented using various applications from fields such as emergency management and sustainable development. The use of raster data for better visualization of demographic data will be presented in Google Earth. Gregory Yetman CIESIN, Columbia University 61 Route 9W PO Box 1000 Palisades , NY 10964 US Phone: 845-365-8982 Fax: 845-365-8922 E-mail: gyetman@ciesin.columbia.edu |
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