DataPlace

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a nice Holiday weekend. I did well with the loot I received. I got some new globes, a new atlas, a book on Civil War maps and a really cool picture of Richard Nixon bowling (only true Big Lebowski fans will understand). With the New Year quickly approaching I will be contemplating what my New Year's resolutions will be and how many points the Longhorns are going to beat USC by (I'm thinking at least 14). Have a great week!!

DataPlace aims to be your one-stop source for housing and demographic data about your community, your region, and the nation. The site not only assembles a variety of data sets from multiple sources, but it also provides tools and guides to assist you in analyzing, interpreting, and applying the data so you can make more informed decisions. DataPlace provides easy access to data at geographic scales ranging from the neighborhood to the nation. The site currently contains data from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses (demographic, economic, housing, and social characteristics), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (home mortgage applications and loans), Section 8 Expiring Use database (neighborhood- and property-level data on federally assisted housing at risk of loss), and Consolidated Plan special tabulations (data on housing needs by household income level). DataPlace's data library will expand in the coming months to include information on topics such as business establishments from the Census Bureau's ZIP Business Patterns database and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit developments from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. DataPlace also provides a powerful yet simple mapping tool that allows you to produce colorful thematic maps with just a few clicks of the mouse. You can customize a map's appearance by selecting different color schemes or interval ranges for your themes and save the results to a PDF file. Future enhancements to the mapping tool will allow you to define your own market area by selecting groups of census tracts, counties, or states and upload your own data for mapping in conjunction with data already provided on DataPlace. Check it out at www.dataplace.org.