Using American FactFinderand Data Ferrett

Ronald CampbellThe Orange County Registerrcampbell@ocregister.com

0:00

Is the new AFF an evil plot?

00:30

Well, no: A long-needed change

“Legacy FactFinder” (launched 1999-2000) Built for Census geeks Grew over time; breadth, quality of data

varies by topic FactFinder 2 (launched January 2011)

More carefully designed But poorly launched – and frustrating for

longtime users

1:16

Demo of legacy FactFinder

1:44

Legacy FactFinder is like a box of chocolates …

4:18

FactFinder 2 is already better

Topics People

Counts, age & sex, income, etc. Housing

Counts, occupancy, mortgage & rent Datasets

Geography States, counties, places Address search

4:28

In some respects it’s way better

User can choose among many results.

Search is interactive and nearly instant.

And the maps are far better than anything delivered by Legacy FactFinder.

5:20

Demo of FactFinder 2

5:45

But (you knew there would be a but …)

Why is it so hard to get data for all the places in a single county?

Why can’t I get a profile for my city on QuickStart?

Why is the transition taking so long? Why can’t I export a map as a

shapefile or KML?

23:00

For the truly geeky: Data Ferrett!

23:57

Nearly two dozen databases

Decennial Census American Community Survey Current Population Survey Consumer Expenditure Survey National Health & Nutrition

Examination Survey Survey of Income and Program

Participation … and many more

24:30

And it comes in many flavors!

Aggregate Microdata Time series Longitudinal

25:09

Demo of Data Ferrett

25:53