Census Blocks

[MatthewColeman]

Does ESRI offer census blocks as a shapefile or do you need to download census block shapefiles from the census website? If so does ESRI also provide data in the attribute table for census blocks like it provides data for the counties, zip codes, census tracts and block groups?

[Jason_RobinsonRobinson]

Does ESRI offer census blocks as a shapefile or do you need to download census block shapefiles from the census website? If so does ESRI also provide data in the attribute table for census blocks like it provides data for the counties, zip codes, census tracts and block groups?

Matthew,

Business Analyst desktop does ship with census block points (centroids, witch are critical for use in how BA10 summarizes data) but not with census block polygons.

The BDS layers in Business Analyst desktop contain the same demographic dataset (block groups, census tracts, zip codes, county areas, CBSAs, DMAs, and state areas).

One thing to be aware of is that these BDS layers are compressed SDC datasets so can exceed the normal shapefile field limit (a little over 1000 where as the BDS layer 1700+ fields) so if you would like to export the layers one would need to use Field Visibility tab to reduce the fields if export the shapefile.

If you are interested in how Business Analyst desktop apportions data by using the census block points here is a helpful link for the Data tab in BA Preferences.

http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Data_tab/000z000000v7000000/

Regards,
Jason

[JohnLattimore]

Jason,

I also need census block data, and would like to use it in community analyst. Do you know if I can somehow decrease the US Census shapefiles for each county and import into CA as I only need about 20 tracts worth?

Thanks

[Jason_RobinsonRobinson]

Jason,

I also need census block data, and would like to use it in community analyst. Do you know if I can somehow decrease the US Census shapefiles for each county and import into CA as I only need about 20 tracts worth?

Thanks

John,

You can download census blocks by state from http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-line.html but also would need to use a smaller subset if you were to upload a zipped shapefile to community analyst.

Regards,
Jason R.