ESP 178 Applied Research Methods
3/6 Exercise: Using U.S. Census Data
Background
The Census provides data that we can use to look at our question about biking in Davis. On the long form of
the census is a question that asks, “How did this person usually get to work last week?” One of the response
categories is, of course, “Bicycle.” We can use these results to compare levels of biking in Davis to other cities
and to look at differences in socio-economic characteristics that might explain differences in biking. For this
exercise, use your own home town or some other city of your choice (Palo Alto might be a fun one, or Eugene,
OR or Boulder, CO) as a comparison for Davis.
Steps
1. Find the web site for American FactFinder, the Census Bureau’s data access system: click on
http://www.census.gov/, then look for American FactFinder in the menu on the left.
2. Look for the Data Sets button in the menu on the left. In the Data Sets section, choose “Decennial Census.”
You should be on the tab for Census 2000 and you’ll see a tab for Census 1990 also. Check the button for
“Census 2000 Summary File 3” (this file includes the long-form data, downtown to the block group level).
From the various options, pick “Detailed Tables.” We’ll be selecting two geographic areas – the City of
Davis and the other city you picked. First add the city to your list by choosing “place” for “Select a
geographic type.” The pick “California” for “Select a state.” Then find Davis in the list of cities and click
“add.” Find your other city in the list (or go back and select a different state and then find your city) and
click “add” again. When you’ve got both cities in your list, click on “next.”
3. Now you’ll see a list of all of the tables available to you. Scroll through this list to find P30 “Means of
Transportation to Work for Workers 16+ years” and click “add.” Go back through the list of tables and
select five more that show characteristics that you think might be linked to levels of biking, adding them to
the list as you go. This will be harder than you think. The list is really, really long (many of the tables
provide “crosstabs” of two or more variables (e.g. age by sex) or may report numbers for one particular
segment of the population) and even for seemingly basic variables, you may have more than one option
(esp. race, ethnicity, income). Once you’ve got your list, then click “show result” and see what you get. If
you don’t like what came up, go back and revise the list of tables. Note: for median age, you need to go to
SF 1: on the line that says “you are here,” click on “data sets with detailed tables,” then find SF 1 in the list
of tables.
4. When you’re done, download your tables (look for the “Print/Download” tab at the top of the page),
checking the button for the “tab delimited” format (do not use the Excel spreadsheet option). Note: if you
hear a “beep” when you try to download the table, look at the line below the address line; click for options,
then select “Download File.” Now go back to the “Print/Download” tab and select “Download.” This time
it will work. Pick the “open” file option.
5. Construct a table that compares Davis to your other city. If your downloaded file is not already open, open
up Excel, then open your downloaded tables (when you open the file, just click through any windows that
pop up – “next,” “next,” “finish”). You will have to do a little clean-up formatting, such as changing
column widths. Once that’s done, you’re ready to create your comparison table. I suggest inserting some
rows at the top of the spreadsheet to make space for your table. The table should have three columns: one
for the variable labels, one for Davis, and one for the other city. Think through what variables and what
measures for those variables you want to show. Raw numbers rarely make for good comparisons, because
population totals are so different between cities. Instead, you’ll want to show percentages and medians or
