Page 44 - GCN, Feb/Mar 2018

HOW LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
The Census Bureau enlists state and local governments in the drive to update the addresses it will use to conduct the decennial headcount BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
An accurate census
count is critical for state and local govern- ments. It affects the number of seats a state has in the U.S. House and helps determine how $590 billion in federal funding is spent on infrastructure, hospitals and schools. But getting an accurate count can be tricky, es- pecially in situations such as a disaster that relocates residents, rent increases that foster more creative living arrangements or a hous- ing boom that fuels new developments.
That’s why the Census Bureau enlists the help of state and local governments to update the addresses it has on file. Its Local Update of Census Addresses program is open to all 39,139 tribal, state and local governments, which can use LUCA to compare their local housing data with the bureau’s and make additions, corrections or deletions to the ad-
dresses on the lists and maps used to conduct the decennial census.
Before comparing files, participants can use other Census tools to standardize and collect data. The Census Geocoder converts addresses to an approximate latitude and longitude based on the ranges in the Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geo- graphic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/ TIGER) shapefiles. Governments can enter up to 10,000 addresses at once and receive information about state, county, tract and block codes for those addresses in a matter of minutes.
For files of more than 10,000 addresses, participants can use the LUCA Geocoding Service, which geocodes the area in which the addresses are found and the next day returns a total count of each matched, unmatched or tied address and an address count.
help ensure an
ACCURATE CENSUS
44 GCN FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 • GCN.COM
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