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click graphic for info; hover to pause This section is focused on topics concerning use of computer-based resources to develop, link, analyze, access, maintain and interpret a broad range of geographic, demographic, economic and business data. The ProximityOne website provides access to disparate, yet connected, demographic-economic data. The ranking tables section is one example of this. How to take data of the type shown in the ranking tables and use those data in other computer-based applications? Another example is the Situation & Outlook database. How to effectively access and use these diverse data with other data on your organization's computers, blended with your data? Data Linkage. The historic issue of linking data remains a major challenge in making effective use of data. At one simplistic level, linking data might involve combining data for a set of counties from two separate datasets. Each record in each dataset needs to have a common code, preferably a geocode, than can serve as a common key. Many, many software tools perform such operations. Yet, the devil is in the details. If one county dataset has a county code field that is numeric, no lead zeroes, and the other dataset has a county code field that is alphanumeric, with lead zeroes, getting the data to merge will be a challenge. More General Setting. A more general setting is where a data warehouse and datamarts are in use. Typical IT configurations do not support easy integration of data such as demographic-economic data. Similarly, while extensive address-based data might be in a data warehouse, typically the data do not have associated latitude-longitude coding making the data, even though accessible, not of direct use in GIS and geospatial applications. Solutions to this type of challenge are addressed in this section. Transitioning Data from Interactive Tables to Spreadsheet Two sections are presented below enabling authorized users to transition data from Web-based interactive tables to local Excel spreadsheet. Userid and password (case-sensitive) are required to perform the operations. Contact ProximityOne (888-364-7656) for information about userids and usage (mention "data technologies userid"). 1. Transitioning Demographic Profile Data from Ranking Tables to Spreadsheet To extract Web-based ranking table data and place those data in a spreadsheet, proceed as follows. Use the Table Access Links to access the Web-based data contained in ranking tables. Resource 1 -- Table Access Links
Resource 2 -- DP Structure XLS and Metadata Metadata for the demographic-economic data in ranking tables above is provided in the "DP Structure XLS" file. The DP Structure XLS excel file contains 12 metadata worksheets: 
• 4 DP Header worksheets • 4 DP Descriptions worksheets • 4 DP Stubs worksheets Steps to Move Selected Rows from Tables to Spreadsheet -- an example using Census Tracts DP3 Economic Characteristics 1. Click "Tracts - Economic Characteristics" link in Table Access Links section above. -- wait for table to populate. 2. Row selection -- select rows (left click; they turn blue) then right click in blue selected rows and Copy (to clipboard) -- this example illustrates the process with two Alabama tracts  3. Open DP Structure XLS. 4. In Excel, click dp3header worksheet, move to active cell A2  5. In Excel, right-click in cell A2 then click Paste  6. Save this worksheet as a new Excel file. The data are now ready for Excel operations. 7. Refer to worksheet dp3descriptions to associate column/item name with description. For example, the number of households by income and benefits category are contained in columns E051 through E061.  Using the Transitioned DP Data in the Spreadsheet -- an example using Census Tracts DP3 Economic Characteristics -- building on above Steps To view/use these data contextually, in a structured table, use the dp3stubs worksheet. For example, the full table stubs for the number of households by income and benefits appear as shown below.  To compare two areas side by side, use the same example with the two Alabama tract rows as described above. After pasting the two rows into the spreadsheet (step 5), and with rows still showing as selected in the spreadsheet, 1. in the spreadsheet, right-click and choose Copy 2. in the spreadsheet, click the dp3descriptions worksheet 3. in the spreadsheet, right-click in cell D1 and choose Paste 4. after changing the column widths, the dp3descriptions worksheet appears as shown below -- now tract AL-001-020100 is shown side-by-side with tract AL-001-020200; -- it is easy to see that the Census 2010 population of AL-001-020100 is 1912 and 2170 for tract AL-001-020200. -- if the resulting worksheet is useful for further analysis, save the worksheet with a new file name.  2. Additional Resources: Transitioning Data from Ranking Tables to Spreadsheet 113th Congress Congressional District Demographics 113th Congress Congressional District Demographics Updates. This section is occasionally updated with related topics. It is intended to serve as a resource to address "data technology" and associated solutions. Watch "in the news" on the ProximityOne home page http://proximityone.com. Additional Information ProximityOne develops geographic-demographic-economic data and analytical tools and helps organizations knit together and use diverse data in a decision-making and analytical framework. We develop custom demographic/economic estimates and projections, develop geographic and geocoded address files, and assist with impact and geospatial analyses. Wide-ranging organizations use our tools (software, data, methodologies) to analyze their own data integrated with other data. Follow ProximityOne on Twitter at www.twitter.com/proximityone. Contact us (888-364-7656) with questions about data covered in this section or to discuss custom estimates, projections or analyses for your areas of interest. |
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