July 2005  

The EconData.Net Monthly Newsletter

SITES OF THE MONTH:  HOUSING PRICES

Four Sites Let You Triangulate the Housing Price Bubble
In a break with tradition here at EconData.Net, we've got a four-plex for site of the month:  four sites that offer you up-to-date information on housing price inflation in markets across the country.  The housing market has been booming from coast-to-coast--particularly on the coasts--and there's good data to show which markets have seen the largest gains--and where housing prices are now highest.  

For starters, you'll want to check out the Census Bureau's 2003 computation of median house prices for states, cities and metropolitan areas, developed as part of the American Community Survey.  These data show that among states, California's houses are the priciest, at a median value of more than $300,000; San Francisco tops the list for metro areas, with a median house price of over $600,000.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/004974.html

The National Association of Realtors tracks housing sales and prices in states and the nation's leading metropolitan areas, and reports their findings quarterly.  Data are available through the end of the first quarter of the year, and show a growth of more nearly 10 percent in the average price of existing homes over the same period a year ago.  
http://www.realtor.org/research.nsf/pages/MetroPrice?OpenDocument

An obscure federal agency, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, scrupulously gathers data on sales of existing homes and constructs a very robust index of housing prices based on repeat sales information.  Their latest report--covering the first quarter of 2005, shows a year-over-year increase in housing prices of 12.5 percent nationally, with increases of 25 percent over the past twelve months in California and more than 30 percent in Nevada.  The OFHEO report contains quarter-by-quarter estimates of housing price inflation going back to 1980 for states and metropolitan areas.
http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/1q05hpi.pdf 

One way of getting a picture of how much housing prices have risen is to compare housing prices with average rents--a calculation roughly akin to the idea behind a price-earnings ratio for looking at the level of the stock market.  Data published by the New York Times shows the ratio of local house prices to local rents in each of the nation's major metropolitan areas.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, the ratio of house prices to annual rents has increased from 12 to one to more than 30 to one in the past five years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/business/28home.moredata.html (Free registration required).

Census Budget Cuts Proposed

Funding Alert – U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Drastically Cuts Census Bureau Budget
On June 21st, in a surprise move, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science approved fiscal year 2006 funding for the Census Bureau of $727 million, $85 million less than the $812 million figure approved the week before by the House of Representatives. The budget set by the subcommittee was approved by the full Appropriations Committee two days later. The Census Bureau indicates that if its budget is at the level set by the Appropriations Committee, it will need to:

• eliminate the American Community Survey (ACS), County Business Patterns, the annual survey of state and local government employment, and Current Industrial Reports;

•  halt the development of the innovative Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program (http://lehd.dsd.census.gov);

•  reduce the sample size of the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) and of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); and

•  scale back the improvements in the 2010 Census, reducing its accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The full Senate will be considering H.R. 2862, which includes the Census budget, the week of July 11th. A chance exists that a Senator on the floor will propose an amendment to increase the Census budget. If that does not occur, the future of the budget will rest in the hands of a House-Senate conference committee, which will likely meet after August recess.

If you believe that the Census budget cuts made by the Senate Appropriations Committee’s will compromise your ability to do your work, write your Senators to ask that the Senate restore funding to the level approved by the House. Senators’ e-mail addresses can be found at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Writing a Senator that sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science will be particularly helpful. For the list of members, see http://appropriations.senate.gov/subcommittees/commjust/topics.cfm?code=commerce

If you e-mail a Senator or Representative, please cc us at
comments@econdata.net. 

 In addition, consider writing Senator Richard Shelby, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science, to express your views.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Opportunity to Shape a Census Data Tool – the EEO Special Tabulation

Last July, we highlighted the Census 2000 EEO Data Tool, a remarkable, versatile means for analyzing Decennial Census “long form” data to see the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of occupational employment in local labor markets. (See http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/eeoindex/page_c.html  and http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/census/index.html.)  Crosstabulations by age, educational attainment, industry, and earnings are provided; the data are available at the county and place level by either place or work or place or residence.

Recently, we learned that the four federal agency sponsors of the EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) Data Tool are discussing with the Census Bureau the possibility of creating a version of the tool based on the American Community Survey (ACS). (Of course, this is on the assumption that the ACS will be funded – see above article.) A more frequent update of the EEO Data Tool has the potential to be of great benefit to analysts and policymakers in the realms of economic and workforce development. (In addition, the elimination of the long form means that a new EEO Data Tool can only be based on the ACS.)

The Census Bureau has indicated it wants to understand data users’ needs for an ACS-based EEO Data Tool. The Urban Markets Initiative at the Brookings Institution has offered to collect your opinions and pass them along to the Census Bureau. Please take a moment to explore the tool and answer the following questions:
  1. Have you used the Census 2000 EEO Data Tool?
  2. Would you like to see an ACS-based EEO Data Tool developed?
  3. How would you use the data generated by the tool?
  4. How, if at all, could the current EEO Data Tool be improved to be more useful to your work?
  5. Would you like to see a new EEO Data Tool released annually, or would a less frequent release be    sufficient?

Please send comments to Lindsay Clark at lclark@brookings.edu .

Drive in Theaters

Number of Drive-In Theaters and Screens by State
It's summer, and for many Americans catching a movie at the local drive-in is a fond memory of summers past.  Although the number of drive-in theaters in the nation peaked in the 1950s and has been declining since, there are still more than 400 drive-ins coast-to-coast.  According to the United Drive In Theatre Owners Association, 25 new drive-ins have been built since 1990.  The largest concentrations of drive ins are in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
http://www.uditoa.org/media.html

Newsletter of the Month:  PLANetizen

Planning related headlines and links
PLANetizen is a public-interest information exchange provided by Urban Insight for the urban planning, design and development community. We provide a daily, one-stop source for urban planning news, job opportunities, commentary and events.  You can get PLANetizen delivered not just to your email inbox, but also by RSS feed; it's even possible to get the information delivered to your handheld device.  
http://www.planetizen.com/news/topweek.php

NEW LINKS

Fire!
As things heat up, and dry out, we offer some links on fire and fire-fighting.

• Geo-Spatial Multi-Agency Coordination (GeoMAC)
  Wildland Fire Mapping
  Mapping tool, with data, for current wildland fires.
  http://www.geomac.gov/
  

• National Interagency Fire Center
  Woodland Fire Injuries and Fatalities
  http://www.nifc.gov/reports/
  

• National Fire Maps
  Maps of current wildland fire activity.
  http://www.nifc.gov/firemaps.html
  

• Current Fire Statistics
  Daily and year-to-date statistics by state, including number of fires and acreage.
  http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html
  

• Wildland Fires
  http://www.nifc.gov/Text