Identifying Rural Communities with 2012-2015 ACS PUMS data

shondelle over 7 years ago

I am interested in performing a national rural analysis with 2012-2015 ACS PUMS data. The ACS PUMS documentation recommends using data from the Missouri Census Data Center (MCDC) <http://mcdc.missouri.edu/websas/geocorr14.html> to identify other geographies. The national level data downloaded from the MCDC includes state, county 2010, CBSA 2010, CBSA type, urban-rural portion. These data are then merged with 4 years of ACS data by state and puma.

Tabulations of rural areas, using CBSA type variable or the urban-rural portion, results in over 2 million missing observations. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I realize that the PUMA represents areas with populations of 100,000 or more people and a 1:1 match between PUMA:rural areas may be limited- I just didn't expect so much missing data.

While, iPUMS is a great resource, I would like to work directly with ACS data from the Census Bureau. Do any of you have other recommendations for identifying rural areas with the ACS PUMS?

Regards,

Shondelle Frederick

Beth Jarosz over 7 years ago

What spatial scale are you interested in analyzing?
The Economic Research Service at USDA provides urban-rural continuum codes by county. We (at PRB) often use those to do county-level analysis of urban/rural.

As you noticed with the MCDC files, PUMAs cannot all be classified as urban or rural because some PUMAs contain elements of both. The reason you are finding missing observations is that MCDC does not code PUMAs that are ambiguous (i.e. not entirely urban nor entirely rural). That is one of the reasons we often work with the ERS county-level urban/rural classifications.
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shondelle over 7 years ago in reply to Beth Jarosz

Thank you Beth for responding to my inquiry. I am familiar with the ERS USDA resource. Can you provide an example of what is meant by 'spatial scale'. I am interested in performing an analysis of U.S. rural communities. Is that what you are asking regarding 'spatial scale'?
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Andi E over 7 years ago

Hi, Shondelle and Beth,

We recently did some analysis of rural-urban differences in Minnesota using the 2010 Rural Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes (defined at the census tract level): www.ers.usda.gov/.../

We did not use ACS microdata, but rather downloaded the published tract-level 5-year ACS estimates and aggregated them to the 4 broad RUCA groupings (in Part 1 of the report). We also grouped our 87 counties into 4 types based on their underlying RUCA codes (in Part 2 of the report), to assess components of population change (natural change, net migration).

Our report is available here: mn.gov/.../greater-mn-refined-and-revisited.jsp

Feel free to email me if you have further questions.

Best,
Andi

Andi Egbert, Assistant Director, MN State Demographic Center
andi.egbert@state.mn.us
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Beth Jarosz over 7 years ago

Hi Shondelle -
By spatial scale, I was trying to determine if you have a preference (or research need) for working with PUMA, county, or smaller (e.g. tract) areas for your analysis. The definition of "rural" depends a bit on what geography (e.g. county or tract) you're using. But now you have both answers - and hopefully one will work for your analysis! If not, let us know, and we'll see if anyone else in the community has a recommendation.
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