Census Tools for ArcGIS, a free add-on that supports governments participating in the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) and Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) programs for the 2010 Census, is now available from ESRI.
State, local, and tribal governments involved in these programs will share their knowledge to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the 2010 Census. This sharing of local knowledge will, in turn, enhance census-related decisions such as apportioning seats in Congress and allocating federal monies to local communities.
The LUCA program will benefit from the verification of geographic and tabular data sources identifying current residential addresses within these local jurisdictions such as tax assessment data, 911 databases, and water and sewer customer databases. Other data source verification benefiting the program may include geographic information system (GIS) road data as well as satellite and/or aerial photography.
Whereas the LUCA program provides updates to addresses and associated spatial data, the BAS program focuses on legal boundaries such as counties, towns, and cities. It involves information documenting the creation, dissolution, and changes of incorporated places, county subdivisions, counties (parishes), and federally recognized American Indian areas.
Jointly developed by ESRI and Citygate GIS LLC, Census Tools for ArcGIS provides functionality that facilitates U.S. Census Bureau business rules while allowing local knowledge to influence and enhance future census-data-driven decisions. “This free add-on provides a unique way to perform census-specific workflow tasks within the ArcGIS environment,” said Richard Leadbeater, State Government Industry Solutions manager, ESRI. “GIS practitioners will become vital contributors to the LUCA and BAS programs by providing critical information about local address and boundary updates to improve the data captured through these census programs.”
With Census Tools for ArcGIS, users can
· Review and update the Census Bureau Master Address File (MAF) in an ArcGIS environment.
· Read spatial data from the Census Bureau in shapefile format.
· Perform census-specific workflow tasks.
· Output revised shapefiles and produce deliverable datasets compliant with Census Bureau standards.
Census Tools for ArcGIS requires ArcGIS Desktop 9.2. For more information or to download, visit www.esri.com/censustools.