What's New — July 2001

Site of the Month: BEA's Regional Economics Information System

An old favorite with a new look, the Bureau of Economic Analysis' Regional Economics Information System now features a much improved user interface that allows you to easily select the geographic data you're looking for, available in html or text file download. BEA data carefully maintains consistent time-series of its major data series, making the agency a terrific resource for tracking trends over time. 

If you haven't visited the BEA site in a while, you are in for a pleasant surprise.
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/reis/

An added bonus: BEA's estimates of 1999 state personal income data are now available:
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/spi/

Latest 2000 Census Data

More and more detailed information is becoming available from the 2000 Census. Census has prepared separate directories to their data files, on-line reports, and Census briefs. You'll find the directories at the sites listed below.

Census Results
Census Bureau
Links to published Census 2000 data files as they become available, organized by state, available in Excel, FTP download, and .pdf.
http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/2kresult.html

Census PDF Reports
Census Bureau
Access to electronic copies of printed Census reports in the widely used Adobe Acrobat ( .pdf) format.
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/index.html

Census Briefs
Census Bureau
Interpretative analysis of Census 2000 data on specific population and housing topics (e.g., race, age), including geographic distribution by state.
http://blue.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/briefs.html

New Links Added

Our new links this month focus on demographics. As the Census 2000 data are released, a number of organizations outside the Census Bureau are carrying out their own analyses. We also provide interesting links on religious affiliation and the growing population of older Americans.

State Race & Ethnicity
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
From Census 2000, data for population 18 years and older by ethnicity and single and multiple race categories, for states, metro areas, counties, and places of 50,000 or more. Includes all multiple race categories of 1% or more in area.
http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/census/index.html

Census Matters
The Brookings Institution
Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy reports analyzing Census 2000 data.
Report topics include race, city growth, and downtown revival.
http://www.brook.edu/es/urban/census/censusmatters.htm

Census Notes and Data
FannieMae Foundation
Series of analyses of Census 2000 data on a variety of topics, e.g., urban turnaround, suburban development, and homeownership patterns.
http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/census_notes.shtml

Demographics of Older Americans
Administration on Aging
Wide variety of statistical information on older Americans, including demography, health, housing, and poverty, much from Census 2000.
http://www.aoa.gov/aoa/stats/statpage.html

Religious Affiliation
Reference material on religious affiliation by country, state, and metro area. Drawn from multiple sources.
http://www.adherents.com/

Sports Business Data

No question about it: Sports is big business. And with franchises in every major sport constantly testing the waters to find a better market, and with Mayors and Governors asked to ante-up for new stadia and arenas, it's become a major economic development issue. Get the bottom-line on professional sports financials thanks to Rodney Fort's website with links to financial data for major league baseball, football, basketball and hockey. You'll find data for each major sport at:

NFL- http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/SportsBusiness/NFL/NFLFrame.htm

NHL- http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/SportsBusiness/NHL/NHLFrame.htm

MLB(Baseball)- http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/SportsBusiness/MLB/MLBProfits/MLBFinancials.htm

NBA- http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/SportsBusiness/NBA/NBAFrame.htm

You'll even find a list of recent and on-going stadium construction projects and the public sector funding that is supporting them:
http://users.pullman.com/rodfort/SportsBusiness/Stadiums/StadFrame.htm

Policy Alert: Congress Debates the American Community Survey

Although not everyone knows it, government statistics underpin nearly all of the data that businesses, communities and citizens use to plan, analyze, and measure the economy, housing starts, transportation activity and myriad other regional trends. A key source of this information has been the "long-form" distributed as part of the Decennial Census. Long-form data cover topics such as income, poverty, educational levels, employment, and commuting patterns, down to the census tract level. Though data users greatly prize these data, they long
have been frustrated by the decade-long wait for new data to become available. To address this problem, the Census Bureau plans to replace the long-form with an annual American Community Survey (ACS). The Bureau has been testing the ACS instrument on an increasingly wider scale for the last five years. The ACS is scheduled for full roll-out in 2003, reaching about 3 percent of households each
year. Funding, however, is not as yet assured. 

The House Subcommittee on the Census, chaired by Representative Dan Miller, has been holding oversight hearings on the 2000 Census. The future of the ACS has been one issue under intense discussion. Recent subcommittee hearings probed into the cost of the ACS, its impact on privacy, and related issues. 

The future of the ACS should be of keen interest to data users everywhere. You can read the testimony on the ACS from the June 13, 2001 hearings at: 
http://www.house.gov/danmiller/census/hearing/hearing1.html#6.13.01hearing

And you can find out about the ACS itself at:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/