1-year estimates at census tract level

Hello everyone,

I am looking for population, basic demographics, and housing costs at the census tract level per year. I know that ACS has yearly estimates at the MSA level and 5 year estimates at the tract level but neither will work for what I am doing  (see below). Does anyone know of a data source for any of the above available at the tract level for each year? I am not worried about small sample sizes and would be happy with just population estimates. 

Bus ridership is at its lowest point in 20 years. I am using transit ridership data at the bus stop level at 100,000 bus stops in 10 regions over 10 years. I need population, basic demographics, and/or housing costs to explain the changes in ridership over time at a hyper-local level.

Cheers,

Simon

Parents
  • There is no easy answer - especially across 10 regions. Offhand, there's annual data from The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act on mortgage loan amounts (which you can get through the CFPB) back to the late 1990s - this would be less helpful for high rental/multifamily areas. LODES data from Census would give you the number of workers back to 2002-2015 who live in a given area (block level), but that's not all the population and race/education only goes back to 2009.

    So you could patch together those for the later years in combination with trend analysis of 2000 to 2010 to 2012/2016 ACS data (using NCDB or the Brown DB s4.ad.brown.edu/.../bridging.htm, which standardizes data for tract boundaries.) For reference, my list of most nationally-available datasets with small area data is a little outdated, but could be helpful for brainstorming and is at www.neighborhoodindicators.org/.../list-national-data-sets-small-area-data .
  • Hi Kathy,

    Thank you so much! These data sources are exactly what I have been looking for! A couple follow-up questions:
    - Why is HMDA data less helpful for high rental/ multifamily areas?
    - Why is LODES data only available for 2002-2015. Have they stopped collecting data or will 2016 come out soon?

    Also you list of data sources is phenomenal. I'll go through it in detail tomorrow
Reply
  • Hi Kathy,

    Thank you so much! These data sources are exactly what I have been looking for! A couple follow-up questions:
    - Why is HMDA data less helpful for high rental/ multifamily areas?
    - Why is LODES data only available for 2002-2015. Have they stopped collecting data or will 2016 come out soon?

    Also you list of data sources is phenomenal. I'll go through it in detail tomorrow
Children
  • I can answer re LODES. I reached out to them about 2016 in April and received the following response: "No release date yet - we're waiting on some legal agreements to be finalized between the Census bureau and one of the data providers. There are beginning to be rumblings so I'd expect an internal push for 2016 LODES data in the immediate future."
  • HMDA doesn't track rents in MF buildings or cash transactions by investors, and with large MF, there's usually not enough sales for trends. My HMDA guide is dated, but discusses strengths/limitations of the data set and gives sample indicators and analysis. www.urban.org/.../guide-home-mortgage-disclosure-act-data
  • Thank you Bernie, I'll send them an email just in case it's around the corner.
  • Thank you Kathy, your guide to HMDA is an excellent ressource! I think I'll be able to use HMDA data but I am still looking to represent population/demographics per year.

    My study period is 2008-2017 so its ok if LODES race/education data only goes back to 2009. The issue for me is missing 2016 and 2017.

    I have read in the ACS Design and Methodology guide that the Master Address File, from which addresses are sampled, comes from USPS' Delivery Sequence Files. These files contain every registered address in the country and are updated twice per year. Marketing companies often buy address listings to send promotional material by mail. I haven't been able to find the number of addresses per census tract for each year. Do you know if these data are available?

    More generally, do you know of any other data source with only population estimates (or some proxy) at the census tract - year level?
  • The FCC has population, household and housing unit estimates at the census block level, and you can aggregate that to Census Tract level. They have the data from 2010-2016 (pop2010 pop2011 pop2012 pop2013 pop2014 pop2015 pop2016)

    here is the link : www.fcc.gov/.../staff-block-estimates

    I am not 100% sure about the accuracy of the estimate but you might want to double check the documentation (methodology) (transition.fcc.gov/.../Annoted Methodology v1.2.pdf)