Student name: _____________________________________
Student name: _____________________________________
The purpose of this lab is to familiarize you with the geodemographic data available from the U.S. Census and how to navigate the Census web site. Census data are collected each decade and provide data that can illustrate differences in economic development within the United States. As with international data, Census data are subject to inherent problems, such as masking differences in inequality within an area, overlooking non-monetized economic activity (not such a great problem within the USA), and the ecological fallacy involved in inferring individual characteristics from areally aggregated data. They are the best we have, however, and are very extensively used. This lab will also, incidentally, introduce or re-acquaint you with the use of Internet search engines.
Using an Internetworked computer, fire up your favorite graphical browser, such as Netscape, the AOL browser, Opera, or Internet Explorer. Click on "search." This will bring up a menu of various search engines, such as Infoseek, Alta Vista, Yahoo, Lycos, or Excite. Pick whichever one you like and type in "Census lookup." A jillion pages will be listed, but somewhere in the first page of listings should be one with the word "venus" in the address, or URL. That's the U.S. Census web page. Click on it and voilà!
Browse around the home page until you find SFTF3C -- Part 1 (Summary Tape File 3 C -- Nation and State level). First, you're going to get state level demographic data as a comparative baseline for Butte County. Go to the "Current Level" menu and pick "go to level state" and submit. Then, highlight California and submit.
Accept the "Choose TABLES..." option and submit. A huge list of population characteristics will come up. Browse around in this list to familiarize yourself with the enormous amount of (sometimes pretty weird) information you can get on your fellow residents of these United States.
Now that you're duly impressed, put a checkmark next to p114a (per capita income). Go back to the top and hit submit.
Retrieve your data by selecting HTML format and hitting submit and then printing.
For this level, go all the way back to the Census lookup home page. This time, pick STF3A (Detailed geography - county, place, tract, etc.). Highlight California and click the "Go to level State--County--Census Tract" option and then submit. Next, highlight "Select/retrieve all of the areas below. (may be slow)" and submit. Choose HTML table format and print.
To make the next step a little easier, you could create a spreadsheet with column A showing the county names and column B showing their per capita incomes. It is possible to do this manually, but .... Sort the data by per capita income (To do this in Excel, highlight both columns and then click on "Data" and on that menu "Sort." Then tell it to sort on column B in descending order).
Of the 58 counties in California, what is Butte County's rank? __________ from the top.
How does Butte County compare with the State average? __________
Now, using the map handout, color in Butte County and all other counties with per capita incomes lower than $13,000. Examining your map, develop a profile of the kinds of counties that are likeliest to be poor. There are perhaps two or three different kinds of counties in terms of their locations, population distributions, and economic bases. In which ways do their relative characteristics resemble those of the underdeveloped countries of the world as discussed by Leibenstein? Why do we see an echo of underdevelopment within the highly developed United States?
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Go back to Current Level: State--County and select "Go to level State--County--Census Tract (*Block Groups)" and highlight Butte County and then submit. Again, choose "Select/retrieve all of the areas below. (may be slow)" to get data on Butte County's 37 Census tracts and submit. Again, choose tables to edit and pick P114A, per capita income, returning back to the top of the table to submit. Again, pick HTML and print.
Sort your data (ideally, in a spreadsheet with one column for tract number and another for per capita income. Identify the five tracts with incomes above the State average and color them in on the second map handout. Similarly, identify the five tracts with incomes less than half the State average and map them.
Now, if you were to do this in, say, Los Angeles County (average per capita income is $16,149), the five wealthiest tracts have per capita incomes in excess of $86,000 (ranging up to nearly $108,000)! The five poorest tracts have incomes below $3,500! What does this tell you about the use of averages in comparing one county with another to get at the geography of poverty and wealth?
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Now, back to Our Fair County, which locational characteristics are common to
the five wealthier tracts? How does that relate to the various models of
urban land use discussed before the midterm?
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Poverty in Butte County is found in two different contexts in two different towns. What do the two southernmost poor tracts in and around Chico have in common? How do they resemble the two poor tracts in and around Oroville? How do these four tracts relate to urban land use models? What explains the poor tract in the heart of Chico?
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