Changing housing market conditions and economic uncertainty are altering the demographic landscape.  The county level population estimates, and components of change data (births, deaths, migration), also reveal how metropolitan areas are changing -- internally, in an absolute sense, and among one-another.

The largest 10 counties based on 2008 population are shown in the graphic presented below.  The latest official county population estimates (July 1, 2008)  may be accessed/ranked using the interactive ranking table (http://proximityone.com/countytrends.htm).  View a selected county and/or ranking on any of the columns for the U.S. or selected state.

Census 2010 will be conducted on April 1, 2010, just a little more than a year away.  The Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) is now integrally linked with Census 2010.  The "Census 2010/ACS" DMINews section provides monthly highlights of current and pending developments regarding these programs.  The focus is on data access and use and to a lesser extent data development and related operations. Proximity will continue to maintain the decennial census focused Web pages Census 2000 and Census 2010.

GAO Report Assesses Status of Census 2010 IT Systems

A March 2009 GAO report reviews the status of and plans for the testing of key decennial census IT systems. Among topics of interest regarding Census 2010 data access and use are TIGER/MAF System and Data Access and Dissemination System.  See Census 2010 for more information.

Improving Coverage/Accuracy in Hard to Count Areas

Consider using the Census Tract Planning Database to help identify hard to count areas.  These data can augment LUCA and related efforts to improve Census 2010 coverage/accuracy.  See Census 2010 for more procedural information and to download the dataset.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has posted a request for public comment in the Federal Register on the recommendations it has received from the Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Standards Review Committee for changes to OMB’s metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area standards.

See Federal Register notice.  Comments are due by April 13, 2009.  The Federal Register notice provides a good overview of the background and current status of Federal metropolitan statistical areas structure, organization and definitions.

Decisions on changes to the metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area standards will not affect the collection, tabulation, and publication of data from the 2010 Census and other current Federal data collections for geographic areas such as states, counties, county subdivisions, and municipalities.

More about metropolitan statistical areas -- http://proximityone.com/metros.htm.

Interactive metro Web maps: http://proximityone.com/situation&outlook.com

U.S. national scope 2008 vintage point shapefiles are now available for hospitals, nursing homes, and community healthcare centers. These new shapefiles are an important part of the broader set of healthcare decision-making information resources.  See http://proximityone.com/hcdmi.htm for more information.  The following Oklahoma City, OK MSA area views illustrate how these shapefiles may be used with the CommunityViewer software to analyze healthcare related issues.

Oklahoma City, OK MSA counties shown with hatch pattern

View location/distribution of hospitals, community healthcare centers, nursing homes in context of other geography

Zoom-in to Oklahoma County; Identify tool used to show mini-profile of a community healthcare center

Patterns of economic prosperity: median household income by census tract; Oklahoma County

Further zoom-in; street detail with labeling; Oklahoma County

Market/service area analysis ...

Site analysis tool used to count number of hospitals within 50 miles of a selected location.

28 hospitals in this example (upper right) with IDs listed in lower right; extract shapefile automatically created.

Market/service area analysis ...

Site analysis tool used to examine demographics in 4 selected census tracts served by community health care center.

Census tract codes shown as yellow labels.

"DP1001" is total population of 4 tracts (shown as cross hatched and listed in lower right box) aggregated.

Market/service area analysis ...

Larger set of tracts selected (18) with total population of 37,668

See broader set of "DP" items available at these web pages: DP1 .. DP2 .. DP3 .. DP4

View characteristics of community healthcare centers in tabular format

This section highlights features/capabilities of the Proximity SDDynamics software and database to combine the new ACS 05-07 demographic updates and analyze these and related data.   Screenshot comparing three districts below.  See http://proximityone.com/sddynamics/guide.

This Situation & Outlook (S&O) update reviews new features available in this interpretive guide to the demographic-economic characteristics and trends focused on metropolitan areas. S&O is updated monthly for each metropolitan statistical area.

See http://proximityone.com/situation&outlook.htm.

This section introduces the Proximity DMIGateway, a decision-making information tool providing Web-based access to selected Federal and other geographic and demographic-economic data resources.  The many diverse Federal statistical agencies have their own Web protocols for data access and structure data differently.  Proximity DMIGateway is a Win32 client-server program that users install on their own computer and provides a simplified, faster, standardized approach to accessing diverse data from different agencies and sources.

See http://proximityone.com/dmigateway/guide.

The Texas Decision-Making Information Guide (http://proximityone.com/txdmi/guide/) provides an integrated summary of selected demographic-economic characteristics and patterns for Texas and sub-state geography and access to corresponding data and tools for further analysis and extension.

Recent Ranking/Crosswalk Table additions:

ARRA ESEA Title I Allocations to School Districts and related demographics -- http://proximityone.com/title1.htm

(rank/compare/contrast all U.S. 13,753 local education agencies)

U.S. by county: 2000-2008 population estimates and change -- http://proximityone.com/countytrends.htm

(new official estimates as of 3/20/09)

Ranking Table main page: http://proximityone.com/rankingtables.htm