Reference:RESEARCHING A LOCAL COMMUNITY OR NEIGHBORHOOD

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RESEARCHING A LOCAL COMMUNITY OR NEIGHBORHOOD

Establish what the community is

  • Is it a county or a city? If so, go to step 3 and look up information for the county or city (or "place").
  • If not, how is it defined? Which streets form the boundary? If you’re not sure:
  • Ask your professor
  • Look at a Thomas Brothers map of the area (Ref Desk G 1528 .S24 T52 )
  • Look at a San Diego police department map of the area (http://www.sandiego.gov/police/)

Locate the community on the SANDAG Census tract map

  • Look at the map online (http://cart.sandag.org/dw/censustracts.htm) or in paper (Ref Desk G 4363 .S24 E25 2000).
  • Locate the Census tracts that make up the community and note the Census tract numbers (for example, SDSU is in census tract # 28.01).

Go to the Census and look up 2000 (or 1990) data for the community

  1. Go to the American FactFinder web site (http://factfinder.census.gov)
  2. Click on "Data Sets"
  3. Select the appropriate data set (Summary File 3 has more variables; Summary File 4 has more racial or ethnic group data) and then click on "Detailed Tables"
  4. Follow the menu on the Detailed Tables - Select Geography page to choose one or more geographic areas # Click on "Next"
  5. Follow the menu on the Detailed Tables - Select Tables page to choose one or more variables
  6. Click on "Show Table"

Go to SANDAG and look up Current Estimate/Forecast data for the community

  1. Go to the Data Warehourse web site (http://cart.sandag.org/dw)
  2. Select a geographic unit type.
  3. Select a Topic and the desired data.
  4. Select an output format.
  5. Click on “Get My Data”

Go to other sources for additional information. Examples

Note: these sources do NOT go down to census tract level information!

General

San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Location: http://www.sandag.cog.ca.us/ Includes statistics on people, transportation, crime, regional growth, etc.

RAND California RAND Corporation Location: http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/databases/statistics.shtml Includes an extensive database on California and its counties and cities; reports on the California economy; and bulletins on state and federal policy developments. Includes some demographic and socioeconomic statistics by ZIP code.

MPA. Market profile analysis: San Diego, Ca. SMSA Location: HC108.S39 M22 Ref Desk A resource designed for marketers, this source contains statistics on population, household, industry and occupational, and other "factors" affecting the San Diego market.

San Diego Union-Tribune Location: http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/databases/news.shtml Includes access to most articles in the SDU-T newspaper from 1984 – present.

Crime

Crime Facts & Figures San Diego Police Location: http://www.sannet.gov/police/stats/index.shtml Includes crime statistics by neighborhood. Also see http://lfolks.sdsu.edu/faculty/readyref/RRF-CrimeStatistics.html

You may need to use a larger geographic area (city, county, etc.) to get additional information

Also see Census Tract Street Locater at http://censtats.census.gov/

MD

9/03

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