What's New - March 2002

Site of the Month: ESRI's Geography Network

March's Site of the Month is ESRI's Geography Network.  Through the Geography Network, you can access a wide range of geographic content, including live maps, downloadable data, and more advanced services, from hundreds of providers around the U.S. and the globe.  Think of Geography Network as the map-oriented equivalent of EconData.Net, a directory to the multiplicity of GIS data available on the web. The Geography Network takes a place in our elite list of Top Ten sites, filling a vacancy created by the move of Dismal.Com to a subscription-only basis.  ESRI, one of the leading suppliers of geographic information system software operates this free site as a guide to the innovative ways GIS tools are being used to analyze data and inform decisions.
http://www.geographynetwork.com

New Links Added

For March, we offer a range of topical links.  The Milken Institute estimates the economic effects of the September 11th attacks on the nation's metropolitan areas.  The American Society of Civil Engineers and the Federal Aviation Administration have data on the quality and capacity of the nation's infrastructure, including roads, bridges and airports.  The Lumina Foundation for Education offers an interesting set of profiles on college affordability and accessibility, by state and institution.

Milken Institute
Metro Economies in the Wake of 9/11
Analysis of projected job losses due to terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for 315 metro areas.
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/poe.cfm?point=presrel

American Society of Civil Engineers
Infrastructure by State
Data on the quality of roads and bridges, airports, schools, drinking water and waste water systems, dams, and solid waste systems, by state. Annual report.
http://www.asce.org/reportcard/index.cfm?reaction=states

Federal Aviation Administration
Air Traffic Activity Data System (ATADS)
Highly detailed query-based access to air traffic activity for airports and states, 1990-present.
http://www.apo.data.faa.gov/atadsintro.htm

Airport Capacity Benchmark Report
Capacity benchmarks for 31 of the nation's busiest airports.  Published April 2001.
http://www.faa.gov/events/benchmarks/  

Terminal Area Forecast System (TAF)
Query-based access to forecasts (to 2015) of air traffic activity for  FAA-towered airports, federally-contracted towered airports, nonfederal towered airports, and many non-towered airports.
www.apo.data.faa.gov/tafintro.htm

Lumina Foundation for Education
College Access and Affordability
Reports on the accessibility and affordability of colleges, by state.
http://www.luminafoundation.org/index.html

College Affordability
State differences in college affordability and graduation rates. (November 2000)
http://www.luminafoundation.org/Publications/pdfs/CollegeAffordabilityWeb.pdf  

Disparities in College Access
State-specific summaries of the accessibility of individual 2- and 4-year colleges, with focus on access for low-income students. (January 2002)
http://www.luminafoundation.org/monographs/index.shtml

Benchmarking State Performance

Many states have adopted the practice of benchmarking their current economic and social performance against that of other states, particularly neighbors and perceived competitors.  Most benchmarking publications focus on the state in question, leaving readers a bit in the dark about cross-national patterns.  Two recent state publications in this genre conveniently include the data for all 50 states for a representative cross section of economic performance indicators.  

The Oklahoma Office of State Finance, has prepared a series of graphs ranking state performance on population growth, educational attainment, poverty, crime, divorce, teenage pregnancy and other indicators.  You'll find this publication at: http://www.state.ok.us/osfdocs/graphs.pdf

Similarly, Washington State's Office of the Forecast Council has prepared an Economic Climate Study, offering data on quality of life, economic performance, education and skills and business costs.  On line at:
http://www.wa.gov/ofc/pubs/clim0901.pdf

State Budget Shortfalls

The current recession has hit state budgets hard, cutting into revenues and driving up expenses, particularly for human services and health care.  The National Association of State Budget Officers tracks the fiscal outlook for each of the states and reports that collectively, the 50 states face a $40 billion budget shortfall.  You can see the state by state outlook for fiscal 2002 by visiting:
http://www.nasbo.org/Publications/State%20Budgets%20-%20January%2025,%202002.htm

New CPI Measure is Coming

The Department of Labor has announced that it is going to produce a new chained consumer price index to report national level inflation.  Unlike the current CPI, which uses a fixed market-basket of goods and services, the new chained CPI changes the weighting of different items in the market basket to reflect the fact that consumers adjust their purchasing patterns when relative prices change.  This new chained CPI, which should premiere this summer, will be reported in addition to the current CPI, and is not a replacement.  The chained CPI measure is expected to show inflation to be about one-tenth to two-tenths of a percent less than the current CPI.  For more information, see
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1014211366750850360,00.html