Having difficulty navigating the new census.gov data download interface

[PeterWang]

Hi, I'm a volunteer for a voter registration organization here in Texas. I last used census.gov in summer 2020, and I think it's been changed since then. I can no longer figure out how to download census tract data attributes of my choosing for Harris County TX.  I used to use factfinder2.census.gov, which doesn't seem to work any longer. All I get now are summary tables at the County level, which isn't useful at all. Has someone navigated this labyrinth before me? Thanks in advance.

[jcarlson]

You should look into the Census Developers portal. If you know the attribute codes and the FIPS of the county, you could easily pull the data by means of a simple URL request.

https://api.census.gov/data/2010/dec/sf1?get=GEO_ID%2CH001001%2CH012002&for=block%3A%2A&in=state%3A1...

[PeterWang]

I seem to have lucked out. Is this known as a trustworthy source? It has what I need.

https://redistrictingdatahub.org/

[jcarlson]

They say where the data is sourced from. You could always compare a sample, but it's probably as trustworthy as getting it straight from the Census, for those particular tables.

[kstrybos]

Hi Peter, the new data portal can be tricky. Sometimes it takes some playing around with to get the tables to show up at the tract level, but they're usually there. If you tell me what tables you're looking for I may be able to better help.

[PeterWang]

I'm interested in race, age, educational attainment. I don't know if it's a reasonable thing to ask, or if it's possible, but can data obtained so that I can create education attributes per race? So I can create age bins or buckets per race?

[kstrybos]

For the race and age tables, search for B03002 and B01001 here: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/ and the tables should pop up. I've found that these tables (the B tables) are the most accurate for both topics. 

Try this for the education data: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=education%20attainment&tid=ACSST5Y2019.S1501&hidePreview=true

Make sure you select the 5-Year Estimate and the correct year of focus from the drop-down on the top of the table. 

[PeterWang]

Hi, after thinking about it for a while, I believe this is the one attribute really captures what I'm looking for about how to describe a community: "FOOD STAMPS/SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (SNAP)".

What I'd like to know is... what is the smallest enumeration unit this data is available for? It would really be nice to have it at the Census block level. These are small, possible as small as 0.69 acre in some dense settings.

What's the name or code of this table? And finally, how do I actually download a .CSV file for ArcGIS Pro with enumeration units as rows, and the SNAP count in a column? I keep just seeing summary tables. I'm looking for a magic glowing "DOWNLOAD" button but never see it. 

Thank you.

[PeterWang]

S2201 is the attribute I want... I can grab it and download it at the ZIP CODE level... but can't get it at the block or block group level. Is it hidden at fine detailed levels to protect communities from harassment?

[PFL]

Most likely. The Census Bureau does not release some data at the smallest levels for privacy reasons, when it would be too easy to figure out who the individual people are.