Census data

One of the most frequent requests that I get from students is for help with data from the US Census Bureau. So I was quite happy when I saw some new tools to help out. See the post below...

Over the past several years I have written several programs for use with Census Data. As part of my service on the AAG’s Census Advisory Committee, I am making these programs available as freeware. I also am releasing the source code for TGR2SHP, the most challenging of programs I have written, along with a technical whitepaper that describes logic and structure of that program. In working with students, and in my own self-education, I have found some of the ideas used in TGR2SHP, particularly efficient extracting of the topology in TIGER and the
strategy for quickly assembling area features (polygons to us older folks), to be quite instructive. Students who have been exposed to these ideas seem to have a better understanding of how programs can be structured to exploit topological relationships.

In addition to the TIGER translators, there are programs for extracting tables from Census Summary Files, and one program for creating shapes from DLGs. All of these are now freeware.
The programs, user manuals, whitepaper, and source code can be found at http://tnatlas.geog.utk.edu/downloadfree.htm. If you find these materials useful, and particularly if you use them in an educational setting, please send me an email (bralston@utk.edu) indicating that fact.
I will release a whitepaper and source code for the Summary File extractors sometime before the end of the year.

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Bruce A. Ralston
Professor of Geography
University of Tennessee
304 Burchfiel Geography Building
Knoxville, TN 37996-0925