PUMAs in the Greater Boston MSA

jblugagne over 5 years ago

Hi!

So I am not american and I'm trying to understand how the american census type data from the ACS works (total newbie about it). I pulled the 2017 ACS 1-year estimate for the whole US.

But I am specifically interested in the Greater Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (or the Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH MSA). Now I would like to know what are the PUMAs (Public Use Microdata Areas) for this specific MSA so I can extract only data for this region from the dataset. My problem is I am unable to find that information anywhere.

I can find the names of the counties that are part of the MSA on wikipedia and try to get the list of PUMAs from this names reference PDF:

https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/puma/2010_PUMA_Names.pdf?# (page 20)

But a lot of the names in there are ambiguous and I would prefer to have an official list than guessing from a wikipedia page. I was able to find a list of FIPS place codes for the Greater Boston MSA, but as I understand it FIPS and PUMAs are not convertible into each other.

It looks like this website manages to do it though:

https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000US14460-boston-cambridge-newton-ma-nh-metro-area/

So I assume this information is out there somewhere.

Is there a list somewhere of what PUMAs are in the Greater Boston MSA?

Thank you very much for your help!

Jean-Baptiste.

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Beth Jarosz over 5 years ago

Hi Jean-Baptiste -

I agree with Cliff's suggestions.

I would also add: If you are looking for just a list of PUMAs, you may want to try the Geocorr application
mcdc.missouri.edu/.../geocorr2014.html

You can select a source geography (like PUMA) and a target geography (like Boston MSA) and the program generates a list, along with allocation factors (percent of the source geography that's in the target geography). I like to run the table with both allocation factor and "afact2" (which is % of target geography that's in the source geography) because it helps me understand how the geographies intersect one another.

As Cliff mentioned, PUMAs change every decade, so you'll want to be sure to generate a list specific to the year you are interested in (other geocorr years can be found at mcdc.missouri.edu/.../geocorr.html)

Beth Jarosz
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Beth Jarosz over 5 years ago

Hi Jean-Baptiste -

I agree with Cliff's suggestions.

I would also add: If you are looking for just a list of PUMAs, you may want to try the Geocorr application
mcdc.missouri.edu/.../geocorr2014.html

You can select a source geography (like PUMA) and a target geography (like Boston MSA) and the program generates a list, along with allocation factors (percent of the source geography that's in the target geography). I like to run the table with both allocation factor and "afact2" (which is % of target geography that's in the source geography) because it helps me understand how the geographies intersect one another.

As Cliff mentioned, PUMAs change every decade, so you'll want to be sure to generate a list specific to the year you are interested in (other geocorr years can be found at mcdc.missouri.edu/.../geocorr.html)

Beth Jarosz
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jblugagne over 5 years ago in reply to Beth Jarosz

Great thank you so much! I managed to get exactly the list that I wanted and those allocation factors are also really helpful.

For anyone interested, I used the 2012 PUMAs as source and 2015 CBSA as a target, for the states of MA and NH.

Jean-Baptiste.
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