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Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology 11.220: Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Spring 1998 Census Exercise

Objectives: This exercise is designed to develop your ability to write concisely and correctly using statistical information. It also serves as an introduction to one of the most frequently used data sources for planners—a national census. In order to write the paper you will also get a good bit of hands-on practice with data manipulation—selecting important indicator variables, combining information, and creating tables and figures.

Assignment: Using data from the 1980 and 1990 United States Censuses of Population and Housing you are to write a paper describing how a census tract changed from 1980 to 1990. In getting started with this exercise it might be helpful to imagine that you have just been employed as the local planner for the city in which this tract is located and you are just beginning to develop an impression of the tract from the data that you have been provided. In other words, one important aspect of this exercise is to see what you are able to figure out about a place based solely on the available census data.

Your focus should be on developing an argument using census data. Please remember that a list of numerical facts organized into paragraphs is not an argument. What inferences can you make about this place, and how can you support those inferences? How do the “facts” measured by the different variables link together? What can you learn by looking for relationships? Take care both in constructing an argument and in choosing the words and phrases that best capture the changes that took place.

Your papers will be on census tract #3531, a tract located in a major metropolitan area. The selection of this particular tract is a completely arbitrary one to avoid undue congestion at Rotch Library. I will not tell you the location of this tract, and you are not to try to figure it out. This exercise is designed to make you focus only on what the census data tell you about a place, so I want to keep any other information or impressions you might have out of it. And I want to minimize any relative disadvantage for the non- American students. (The tract is, obviously, in the United States.)

The Data: The packets of census tables that I have prepared for this exercise include all of the tables from the 1980 and 1990 Censuses of Population and Housing that contain information aggregated for tract #3531. Some tables normally 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 2 Census Exercise

constructed by the Bureau of the Census may not be included in the packets because certain tables are prepared only for tracts that have a minimum population of various population subgroups. I have attached to each packet a list of all the possible census tables that might be published for a particular tract in each year and have indicated with an asterisk which ones have not been published for tract #3531. 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 3 Census Exercise

A Census Tract: For those of you who will be using census data for the first time in this exercise, it will be useful to know just what a census tract is. Census tracts are small, relatively permanent geographic areas into which larger geographic areas are divided for the purpose of providing statistics for small areas. When each tract was established, it was designed to be relatively homogeneous with respect to population characteristics, economic status, and living conditions. The degree of homogeneity, of course, changes over time. Usually, U.S. census tracts have between 2,000 and 8,000 residents. The shape and area of a tract are of relatively minor importance (though density may be interesting to look at). One tract might be rather large as measured in acres, and another quite small. Streets or geographic features that do not change over time are the delimiters. On occasion, a census tract is subdivided into two or more new tracts in a later census; the boundaries of tract #3531 did not change between 1980 and 1990.

Generally, local planners find themselves using census data at the tract level of aggregation, though they often also use data aggregated to the level of a city, county, or metropolitan area. (In the 1980 census the primary unit delineating a metropolitan area was the so-called Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA); in the 1990 census these areas were defined as either Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) or as Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSA). You need not concern yourselves with these distinctions in this exercise.) On the other hand, it is occasionally necessary to have data for a even smaller geographic area; accordingly, the data are also published as block statistics (city blocks) for those purposes. We will use only tract data in this exercise.

Help: We have one important resource at our disposal to assist with your papers: Dowell Myers, Analysis with Local Census Data: Portraits of Change. Because each student will plot a different path with the data and will choice his or her own emphasis, it is not possible to assign everyone the same sections in Myers. Skim through the book reading in detail the sections that apply to what you are working on. You will learn a lot more than will be immediately applicable to your paper, an additional benefit of using Myers in conjunction with this paper.

If you are still puzzled by any of the information contained in the census data tables, ask any member of the course staff. We will find the answer for you. For further information there is an extensive set of documentation concerning the census in Rotch Library. This information exists in two different locations within the library. The Urban Documents Area back behind the reference desk houses all of the Massachusetts data and documents from the various censuses. These data are part of the reference collection and do not circulate. (In addition, the reference desk has a copy of the 1990 census data on CD-ROM, though you will not need to use it for this exercise. For other projects using census data you can borrow the CD-ROM and use it on the computer located in the Census Alcove on the third level of the stacks. Documentation on how to use the CD-ROM to extract information is adjacent to the computer.) 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 4 Census Exercise

The Census Alcove at the back of the third level of the stacks has all of the census documents for the entire country except for the Massachusetts documents mentioned above. (Just past the Rotch reference desk are stairs and a bridge that connect the reference area to the third level of the stacks and the Census Alcove). At some point you ought to browse through the census collection so that you have a sense of what is available there. At the very beginning of the section of 1980 census documents you will find the U.S. Census of Population and Housing 1980 Users' Guide (call number #HA201.1980b). This document will help you to understand the fine points of using census data. It is published in three parts. Part A, “Text” (particularly pp. 91-106, “What problems come up in using census statistics?”), and Part B, “Glossary,” are particularly helpful. Similar materials are published for each decennial census, and the 1990 versions should be available in Rotch as well.

The volumes from which I have selected the data for this exercise are also in the Census Alcove at Rotch. The census collection is just to your right at the end of the bridge. The 1980 data are from a series of green bound volumes labeled 1980 Census Tracts. The call number is “Census HA201.1980h.” The 1990 data are from a series of blue bound volumes, 1990 Census of Population and Housing: Population and Housing Characteristics for Census Tracts and Block Numbering Areas. The call number is “Census HA201.1990k.” Both sets of volumes contain a lot of information concerning the census in their introductory chapters and in their appendices. Of particular interest is the actual census questionnaire, reproduced at the back of all of the census publications. You might need to refer to a copy of the questionnaire to understand particular variables that are tabulated in the census tables.

We will place examples of good papers from previous years in a binder and place it on reserve in Rotch Library.

Schedule: With respect to this exercise, you have two options. You can simply write your final paper over the next month and hand it in on:

Friday, April 24 Final paper due at 5:00 p.m. in box in 10-485.

Or, you can write your paper in two phases—an ungraded draft and a graded final paper. If you choose this second option, I will comment extensively on your draft, and then you will be able to incorporate those comments into your final paper. If you choose this option, there will be a firm deadline for submission of the draft so that I will have sufficient time to make comments and get them back to you so that you will have time to take account of them in your final paper. Drafts submitted before the due date will be commented upon as quickly as I can get to them. I make no promises to comment on any drafts submitted after the due date. I will not comment on obviously incomplete 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 5 Census Exercise

drafts such as outlines for the paper or compilations of notes and miscellaneous thoughts.

The schedule for this option will be as follows. Drafts are due Friday, March 21, just before spring vacation. This is also the day that Homework Set #3 will be due, but I will make Homework Set #3 a short one.

Monday, March 30 Draft due before 5:00 p.m. in box in 10-485. Earlier submissions are recommended.

I have tried to make the due date for the draft as late as possible while still allowing me a week or so to provide feedback followed by sufficient time for you to finish the final paper. Accordingly, the final paper will be due Friday, April 24. 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 6 Census Exercise

Feedback and Both the drafts and the final papers will be read and commented upon by me. Grading: If you submit a draft, you will receive careful feedback on it. However, only the final paper will be graded. Please do not consider this an invitation to do sloppy work on the draft. Last year many of the drafts were little more than random thoughts. I was able to provide very little feedback, and I was more than a little annoyed that I had to spend my time wading through very raw material. The point of separating the exercise into a draft and final paper is to build in room for feedback and improvement, something that your predecessors in QR have asked for on this exercise.

My comments will focus on your use of quantitative information and the overall quality of your argument, but I will also pay careful attention to the writing, including spelling, grammar, clarity of expression, organization, and the like. In an ideal educational situation feedback on students papers should be more of a conversation between the reader and the writer than a unilateral, one-way communication with binary output (i.e. “good” v. “bad,” “pass” v. “fail,” “A” v. “B,” “+” v. “-”). Accordingly, I will provide the bulk of my comments on your paper on tape cassette. I will jot down marginal notes as I read, and I will carefully edit one or two sections of each paper to demonstrate more clearly what I prefer to see in your writing, but I will record most of my comments verbally as I read your paper. In this manner I am confident that I will be able to provide you more feedback than is possible in written form. You will also have the advantage of hearing the tone with which I make my comments. Students often have to guess the tone in which, or the relative emphasis with which, a written comment is made, and it is all too easy to make an incorrect inference about what the professor (or other reader) had in mind.

Format: Write your paper with word processing software. That way you can save text from your draft and directly transfer it into the final paper. Do not forget to run Spellcheck. There is no longer any reason to hand in papers with spelling errors, and I will not tolerate spelling errors that would otherwise be picked up by a reasonable spell checker. Accordingly, I will read your paper until the point I encounter the first spelling error. At that point, I will stop reading and return it to you with no further comment or grade.

The exercise has a strict page limit of eight double-spaced pages for both the draft and the final paper. I will strictly enforce these limits, which include any figures or tables. If you exceed the page limit, I will discard the extra pages before I begin to read the paper. I have seen many tricks in an attempt to circumvent the page limit: minuscule type faces, space-and-a-half spacing, numbering the pages 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. None of them work. I will cut off the amount appropriate to enforcing the limit. I want you to learn to present your ideas succinctly and to avoid making this exercise take up all of your (and my) semester.1

1 In a Boston Globe article I have found a soul mate in enforcing page limits: US District Judge Bruce Van Sickle has announced that he will read only 15 pages of any motion or brief, unless a lawyer gets permission to file more. “Please recall an observation credited to Winston Churchill: ‘The length of this document defends it well against the 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 7 Census Exercise

Hand in your paper in one of the envelopes that we will provide. (We will distribute the envelopes in class.) Include a blank, regular size tape cassette in the envelope. It doesn’t have to be a fancy one, the cheapest tapes that you can buy at Radio Shack (on Mass. Ave. in Central Square or elsewhere) will do just fine. I will use the tape to provide you with oral feedback on your draft as well as on your final paper. Put your name on the paper, the envelope, and the tape —not my name, your name.

Constraints: Because this paper is an opportunity for us to assess your individual ability to make sense of a dataset and to write about it clearly, you must write your own paper. Furthermore, you are required to create your own tables, figures, or charts. Feel free to discuss the census data with one another, but make your own selections from the data, do any appropriate calculations by yourself, create your own presentations of the data, and write your own paper.

Pitfalls: We have been assigning this exercise in various forms for a number of years. The experience of previous students indicates that many of you are likely to find this exercise to be extremely frustrating. Yet, despite the frustration, many students have said that this exercise was among the more useful things they did in 11.220. Some of the frustration has come from the number of dimensions in the assignment, and I have tried hard to restrict these dimensions so that you can most fruitfully focus your work at each stage. But much of the frustration is the genuine frustration that you all will feel every time you work with census data. They will not answer all your questions about a place, and often a particularly key bit of information will be missing or irretrievable. This is a rather complex assignment, and it is probably a good idea to think about how you are going to manage that complexity before you plan what you are going to write.

A common pitfall is to construct tables or figures that are much too complicated. Be very strategic in your use of tables and figures, ones that are unnecessary because they are too simple and ones that are too complicated detract from the quality of your paper.

Note: See Checklist on next page.

risk of being read.’ My hackles rise when I see work that I don’t think is necessary, and yet is billable.” My hackles rise sooner than his. 11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning I Page 8 Census Exercise

Checklist: Before submitting your drafts and final papers, please go through the following checklist:

❏ You are using one of the envelopes that we will provide.

❏ Your name is written on the envelope.

❏ You have included a standard-size cassette tape.

❏ Your name is written on the cassette tape.

❏ Your paper has a real title (more than the generic “Census Exercise”).

❏ Figures are called “figures” and numbered consecutively.

❏ Tables are called “tables” and numbered consecutively.

❏ All figures and tables have titles, clear labels, and a source indicated at the bottom. They are neither too simple nor too complicated. Refer to Myers for good guidelines on how to do this.

❏ Paper is within the limit of eight double-spaced pages—figures, tables, footnotes, and appendices included.

❏ You have run spellcheck to catch the most egregious spelling errors and have corrected them.

❏ The pages of your paper are numbered by the computer. (Now is the right time to figure out how to do this automatically.)

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