This guide covers 3 functions you can perform with DataPlace: o Mapping, o Creating Tables, and o Creating Rankings. Registering with DataPlace

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "This guide covers 3 functions you can perform with DataPlace: o Mapping, o Creating Tables, and o Creating Rankings. Registering with DataPlace"

Charles Richardson
5 years ago
Views:

1 Guide for Using DataPlace DataPlace is one-stop source for housing and demographic data about communities, the region, and the nation. The site assembles a variety of data sets from multiple sources, and provides tools and guides to assist in analyzing, interpreting, and applying the data for use in making more informed decisions. Includes data for the District of Columbia, for census tracts and zip codes and in some instances for individual properties. This guide covers 3 functions you can perform with DataPlace: o Mapping, o Creating Tables, and o Creating Rankings. Registering with DataPlace You can register quickly and easily by clicking the Register link in the top-right corner. Once you register you can log into your account, where your data, charts, maps and tables can be saved for later use. Registration is NOT necessary to use DataPlace, but registering does provide the capability to save your work for later use. Note: Much of the guidance provided in this Guide draws directly from guidance provided on the DataPlace web site. We have enhanced this guidance in several instances with additional screen shots and descriptions. NeighborhoodInfo DC 1

Guide for Mapping with DataPlace Getting Started One of DataPlace's powerful uses is the ability to create maps that can be used in your documents, reports, and proposals.

2 Guide for Mapping with DataPlace Getting Started One of DataPlace's powerful uses is the ability to create maps that can be used in your documents, reports, and proposals. The DataPlace mapping tool lets you display data/indicators that you select for a specific neighborhood through a customized, colorful, ready-to-print map. To get started with creating a map, click on the tab at the top of the DataPlace home page. Navigating a map You can quickly change the view of the map by left-clicking on the map and holding the button down as you drag the map in any direction. Or, you can click on the directional bars at the left edge of the map pane, which will appear if you move your mouse to the edge of the map. You can zoom in or out by double-clicking on the map or by using the slider in the upper left corner of the map. NeighborhoodInfo DC 2

3 You can re-center the map by double-clicking on a location that appears on the map. Another way to re-center on a location is by searching for it via the search box or the "Browse Places" link at the top of the page. NeighborhoodInfo DC 3

Selecting an indicator To the right of the map, the box labeled choose data to show provides several options for selecting an indicator to display. 1.

4 Selecting an indicator To the right of the map, the box labeled choose data to show provides several options for selecting an indicator to display. 1. My Indicators: If you're a registered DataPlace user and are logged in to the site, this link displays the indicators you have saved in your My DataPlace area. Click on the "add" link to the left of an indicator label to display it on the map. 2. Popular: This link displays the five most popular indicators among users of DataPlace. 3. Recently Used: This link displays the indicators that you've previously selected in your current DataPlace session. 4. Topic or Source: These links let you browse all the indicators on DataPlace by specific topics or data sources, with links to subcategories. Browse by topic All Topics Housing Income / Employment Mortgage Lending Social / Demographic NeighborhoodInfo DC 4

5 5. Search For An Indicator: Type a key word -- such as "poverty" or "subprime lenders" -- in the search box and hit Search to see all the indicators that contain the search term (example provided below). You can refine your search by adding other key words or removing search terms by clicking NeighborhoodInfo DC 5

6 Using and altering the legend Metadata information. Metadata is information about data, such as the source and the date the data was collected. The general descriptions of the data are useful for becoming familiar with the data that you use. If you click on the blue icon, you will see a variety of metadata related to the data set you have chosen. Glossary definitions. Key terms in the indicator description are underlined. If you mouse over an underlined term, a pop-up box shows a short definition of the term. Clicking on the term pops up the full glossary entry. Data intervals. The data for the selected indicator is displayed according a certain number of intervals. For most indicators, the default number is eight. To change the number of intervals or ranges, click the drop-down 8 arrow below the chart showing the ranges for your selected indicator. The map above uses 8 intervals while the map on the following page uses 4. NeighborhoodInfo DC 6

7 NeighborhoodInfo DC 7

8 Using the identify tool Clicking the question-mark icon above the zoom slider activates an "identify" function that allows you to see data for a particular area on the map when you click on the area. In the example, the poverty rate for the particular census tract is compared with that of the county, metro area, state, and nation. Changing the appearance of a map You can change the range of colors to represent data on the map by clicking on the Change map colors + layers link, just above the data box. This link also lets you change the geographic features (e.g., parks, streets, bodies of water, etc.) to be displayed on the map. Printing and saving maps To print or save a PDF version of a map, click on the display your map in PDF format, ready for printing. link above the legend. A new window will If you're a registered DataPlace user and are logged in to the site, you can save a map to your My DataPlace area and access it whenever you want. Click on the link above the legend. NeighborhoodInfo DC 8

Guide for Tables and Charts with DataPlace Getting Started DataPlace allows you the ability to create tables and charts that can be used in your documents, reports, and proposals.

9 Guide for Tables and Charts with DataPlace Getting Started DataPlace allows you the ability to create tables and charts that can be used in your documents, reports, and proposals. This data and charts tool lets you to customize the content of a table and chart to show the exact data, geographic areas, and timeframes you're interested in. As you select the elements you want to display, DataPlace creates a table and companion chart reflecting your choices. With this powerful tool, you can: Compare one or more indicators across multiple geographic locations. Examine changes in an indicator's value over time. Combine these features, comparing differences across locations and changes over time simultaneously. To get started with creating a chart, clink on the tab at the top of the DataPlace home page. Adding locations, indicators, and time frames Locations. If you haven't yet selected a location or an indicator to display on the table and chart, DataPlace defaults to showing total population for the United States. If you have already selected a location or locations in your session on DataPlace, they will appear on the Data & Charts page. NeighborhoodInfo DC 9

Or, you can browse to a location by clicking on the Browse Places link located immediately beneath the search box or on the

10 You can quickly select a location to add to the table and chart by typing the location name into the search box at the top of the page. Or, you can browse to a location by clicking on the Browse Places link located immediately beneath the search box or on the drop-down arrow to the right of this link. Make the final selection of the location to add by clicking on the Add button in the browser pop-up box. Repeat this process to add other locations to the table and chart. NeighborhoodInfo DC 10

Indicators. If you haven't yet selected an indicator to display on the table and chart, DataPlace defaults to showing total population for the United States.

11 Indicators. If you haven't yet selected an indicator to display on the table and chart, DataPlace defaults to showing total population for the United States. If you have already selected an indicator or indicators in your session on DataPlace, they will appear on the Data & Charts page. To the right of the chart, the box labeled choose data to show provides several options for selecting indicators. 1. My Indicators: If you're a registered DataPlace user and are logged in to the site, this link displays the indicators you have saved in your My DataPlace area. Click on the "add" link to the left of an indicator label to add it to the table and chart. 2. Popular: This link displays the five most popular indicators among users of DataPlace. NeighborhoodInfo DC 11

12 3. Recently Used: This link displays the indicators that you've previously selected in your current DataPlace session. 4. Search For An Indicator. This link gives you several ways to find an indicator. Type a key word -- such as "poverty" or "population density" -- in the search box and hit Search to see all the indicators that contain the search term. You can refine your search by adding other key words or removing search terms by clicking 5. Browse all the indicators on DataPlace by Topic or Data Source. When you choose a topic or data source, such as "Housing" or "Internal Revenue Service," DataPlace lists all of the related indicators and helps you sort through them quickly. The gray Narrow Search Results box to the right of the list of indicators displays various indicator subcategories. The number in parentheses tells how many indicators fall into each subcategory, and clicking on a subcategory shows a list of the indicators within it. NeighborhoodInfo DC 12

13 Time frames. When additional years of data are available for a selected indicator, a drop-down box will appear to the right of the chart. Select a time period from this drop-down, and the historical data will be added to the chart. In the example below, choosing "2001" from the drop-down and clicking Go will add that year's data to the chart. NeighborhoodInfo DC 13

Selecting what to show on the chart Once you've built a basic table and chart with your selected location(s), indicator(s), and time frame(s), you can customize the display of your chart by changing

14 Selecting what to show on the chart Once you've built a basic table and chart with your selected location(s), indicator(s), and time frame(s), you can customize the display of your chart by changing the grouping of the data. Using the drop-down box below the chart, you can group the bars by year or location. Using the "Colors show" drop-down, you can also alter what the different colors represent on the chart. If you have selected more than one indicator, you will see a third drop-down that lets you further customize the chart. The two following charts show the same data but displayed differently, one is grouped by year while the other is grouped by location. NeighborhoodInfo DC 14

15 Removing locations, indicators, and time frames You can remove a location, indicator, or year by clicking chart. next to it. That data will be deleted from the table and Accessing maps from a Data and Chart page You can get fast access to maps from the Data & Charts page by clicking on any data value in a table. For example, in the table below, each data value in the row for "Homeownership rate" is a live link. If you drag your mouse over a value, a pop-up box will tell you what map will be produced if you click on the value. In this table, clicking on the 34.5% value under 1990 for San Francisco takes you to a map showing variations in homeownership rates in San Francisco. NeighborhoodInfo DC 15

Accessing Data and Charts from other pages Just as you can move quickly from a Data & Chart page to a map, you can also quickly link to tables and charts from other types of data displays.

16 Accessing Data and Charts from other pages Just as you can move quickly from a Data & Chart page to a map, you can also quickly link to tables and charts from other types of data displays. From any, you can link to a table or chart of any indicator for a single location and then add data and locations. Click the Chart link at the far right in the row for an indicator. NeighborhoodInfo DC 16

17 From any page, you can link to tables and charts that compare multiple indicators or locations simultaneously. To display all the indicators in a particular category on a single chart and table, click the Chart all link at the far right, across from the indicator heading. If you're comparing multiple locations on a Key Indicators page, you can chart how the locations compare on any given indicator by clicking the "Compare" link on the far right. Printing and saving tables and charts To print or save a PDF version of a table and chart, click on the display your table and chart in PDF format, ready for printing. link above the table. A new window will If you're a registered DataPlace user and are logged in to the site, you can save a table and chart to your My DataPlace area and access it whenever you want. Click on the link above the table. NeighborhoodInfo DC 17

18 Scatterplot Scatterplots are a powerful visualization tool that let you compare many locations and data at the same time, on 2 dimensions. You can access scatterplots by clicking the Scatterplot link near the top of the screen. On DataPlace Scatterplots, each dot represents a place (a State, County, Zip Code, etc.). Each axis of the scatterplot represents a different indicator. NeighborhoodInfo DC 18

Changing the Scatterplot You control the scatterplot using the blue panel on the right side. Here you'll find options to change each of these things: 1. What type of places are being compared?

19 Changing the Scatterplot You control the scatterplot using the blue panel on the right side. Here you'll find options to change each of these things: 1. What type of places are being compared? This changes what the dots represent. You can select States, Counties, Metropolitan Areas, Zip Codes, Cities and Tracts. 2. What areas do you want to include? This would for example let you compare just counties in Texas, or Census Tracts within Washington D.C. NeighborhoodInfo DC 19

20 3. What indicator do you want to show on each axis? Clicking will let you choose a different indicator to show. NeighborhoodInfo DC 20

21 4. Display Options lets you clone your current scatterplot so you can make up to 4 independently controllable scatterplots. Once you do this, click on the plot you want to control, then use the blue box to make changes to that plot. NeighborhoodInfo DC 21

5. "Show correlation line" -- check this box to add a blue "best-fit line" to the scatterplot, as well as computing the statistical "r" factor that measures the amount of correlation between the two

22 5. "Show correlation line" -- check this box to add a blue "best-fit line" to the scatterplot, as well as computing the statistical "r" factor that measures the amount of correlation between the two indicators you've selected. Printing and Saving Scatterplots At the top of the page you can use the print and save features. Click 'print' to print the scatterplots to your printer. When you click 'save' you will be given the option to name the page that will be stored in My DataPlace. NeighborhoodInfo DC 22

Guide for Rankings with DataPlace Getting Started The Rankings feature of DataPlace provides a simple way to see how your area of interest compares with other locations on a given indicator.

23 Guide for Rankings with DataPlace Getting Started The Rankings feature of DataPlace provides a simple way to see how your area of interest compares with other locations on a given indicator. You can also specify a geographic boundary that defines which locations are included in your rankings. For example, you can rank all counties in the nation, or limit your rankings to just those counties within a specific state. To start, click on the link at the top of the DataPlace home page. Features of Rankings page The default Rankings page shows states ranked in descending order by total population. NeighborhoodInfo DC 23

Histograms. Next to each indicator in the area overview or on the rankings page is a histogram -- a graphical representation of an indicator's frequency distribution.

The rightmost side of the axis representing the highest part of the range and the left axis representing the lowest part of the range.

24 Histograms. Next to each indicator in the area overview or on the rankings page is a histogram -- a graphical representation of an indicator's frequency distribution. The horizontal x-axis is the range of all the statistics for an indicator. The rightmost side of the axis representing the highest part of the range and the left axis representing the lowest part of the range. DataPlace shrinks or expands the x-axis so that it is always the same length from left to right. The vertical y-axis shows the number of places at each interval on the x-axis; higher bars represent more places, shorter bars represent fewer places. If looking at an indicator for a county, you'll see the histogram comparing that county to other counties in the US; states will be compared to states, tracts with tracts, and so on. A red bar represents where the particular place you're looking at falls on the x-axis. The y-axis shows your location and how many or few locations like the one you're looking at exist within the US for that particular indicator. Consider the histogram for California's population in the histogram above. The 2000 Census had the population of California to be 33,871,648. Because California was the most populous state in the nation, and because it is alone in its large population, the red rectangle representing California is a small blip for the y- axis because it's the only state with that population. When it is the only one, the blip is small. Because it is the most populous, and because the x-axis depicts of the entire range of values -- in this case state populations -- the red blip is also farthest to the right on the x-axis. Histograms take some getting used to. Look at the top 30 in the rankings page for a view of how they change from most populous to least populous. You'll find that the red blip moves down the scale from highest to lowest. Paging. You can move up and down the rankings by using the links at the bottom right of any ranking page. Click the Next 21 link to view the next page of state population rankings. Sort order. You can change your sort order by clicking the indicator link the top of the page. For example, on the default Rankings page, clicking on the Total population 2000 link reverses the sort order from descending to ascending, showing Wyoming as the least populous state in the nation. District of Columbia is included in the rankings list as the second least populous "state." The District of Columbia is included in any state ranking on DataPlace. NeighborhoodInfo DC 24

Changing indicators To the right of the rankings list, the yellow box labeled "Choose data to show" provides several options for selecting an indicator to display. 1.

25 Changing indicators To the right of the rankings list, the yellow box labeled "Choose data to show" provides several options for selecting an indicator to display. 1. My Indicators: If you're a registered DataPlace user and are logged in to the site, this link displays the indicators you have saved in your My DataPlace area. Click on the "add" link to the left of an indicator label to display it on the map. 2. Popular: This link displays the five most popular indicators among users of DataPlace. 3. Recently Used: This link displays the indicators that you've previously selected in your current DataPlace session. 4. Search For An Indicator. Type a key word -- such as "poverty" or "subprime" -- in the search box and hit Search to see all the indicators that contain the search term. You can refine your search by adding other key words or removing search terms by clicking. 5. Browse all the indicators on DataPlace Topic or Source: These links let you browse all the indicators on DataPlace by specific topics or data sources, with links to subcategories. For example, selecting the "Housing" link takes us to the "Find Indicators" pop-up box with a list of all housing-related indicators in DataPlace. To narrow the search, type "overcrowding" in the search box. The search results show four DataPlace indicators related to overcrowding. NeighborhoodInfo DC 25

26 Select "Pct. housing units that are overcrowded" and click on the add link to the left of this indicator. That adds the indicator to the rankings page. After closing the "Find Indicators" box, you see that the states are ranked in descending order on the selected indicator, with Hawaii having the highest overcrowding rate of 15.4 percent. The similar rates for Hawaii and California are reflected by their red histogram bars, which fall to the far right. The gap between their rates and the third highest rate -- Texas, at 9.4 percent -- likewise is reflected by the gap in the histogram to the right of Texas' red bar. NeighborhoodInfo DC 26

Changing geographic areas To change the geographic unit on which an indicator is ranked, go to the "Modify rankings" box to the right of the ranking table.

27 Changing geographic areas To change the geographic unit on which an indicator is ranked, go to the "Modify rankings" box to the right of the ranking table. From the example above, selecting "Tracts" refreshes the page to show all census tracts in the nation ranked by overcrowding rate. Other geographic areas available through the drop-down are metropolitan area, county, and city. NeighborhoodInfo DC 27

Restricting locations To narrow the geographic scope of the ranking table, go to the < Choose a different boundary link in the Modify Rankings box.

28 Restricting locations To narrow the geographic scope of the ranking table, go to the < Choose a different boundary link in the Modify Rankings box. The "Choose a place" pop-up box appears. Following the example above, to identify the most overcrowded census tracts in Washington DC, select "States" in the pop-up box and then "District of Columbia." NeighborhoodInfo DC 28

29 Rank each Census Tract w ithin Washington Finally, click the tracts in Washington DC. button to refresh the table so it ranks only census NeighborhoodInfo DC 29

The < Choose a different boundary function can also be used to show where a particular location falls in a larger ranking.

30 To further narrow the rankings by population limits, go to the "With minimum population" drop-down to the right of the table. For example, choosing 5,000 from the drop-down would reduce the list of overcrowded tracts in the District of Columbia to the 16 tracts with at least 5,000 people. The < Choose a different boundary function can also be used to show where a particular location falls in a larger ranking. From our example, to find out where the highest ranked census tract, Tract , falls in the national list on overcrowding rate, click on < Choose a different boundary and select "USA" from the top of the Rank each Census Tract w ithin USA pop-up box. Then hit the button. To quickly find Tract 's spot in the national list, begin typing " Tract " into the search box at the top of the screen. The text autocompleter gives a choice of geographic areas that match what's being typed, ranking those areas based on population. NeighborhoodInfo DC 30

Selecting Tract 11001-0025.02, from the auto-complete list takes us to the page in the overcrowding ranking that contains Tract 11001-0025.

31 Selecting Tract , from the auto-complete list takes us to the page in the overcrowding ranking that contains Tract , highlighted in blue. The list shows that Tract , ranks 3715th among all census tracts in the nation. NeighborhoodInfo DC 31

Adding extra indicators to see other rankings for a given area Once you've pinpointed a location's rank on a particular indicator (such as Tract 11001-0025.

32 Adding extra indicators to see other rankings for a given area Once you've pinpointed a location's rank on a particular indicator (such as Tract , on overcrowding above), you can quickly see its rank on other indicators. Choose a new indicator using the links in the blue "Choose data to show" box. Selecting an indicator produces a new ranking list and takes you to the page where the featured location, again highlighted in blue, falls. In the example below, , ranks 14,760th among all tracts in the nation by poverty rate. NeighborhoodInfo DC 32

(1) How can I use SimplyMap to determine the top PRIZM Segments in my neighborhood?

SimplyMap 3.0 Hands-On Exercises URL: http://simplymap.com/ Practice Exercises: Using PRIZM Segments in SimplyMap (1) How can I use SimplyMap to determine the top PRIZM Segments in my neighborhood? PRIZM