hack the census, unleash the power of data

Powering New Orleans Economic BenchmarksAlicia BrownApril 13, 2016hacking the Census API via FME

The Team

Data AnalystSocrata

Data AnalystSocrata

Program ManagerSocrata

Alicia Brown Daniella Kuttner Chris Rieth

New Orleans Mission● Develop & Track performance goals● Benchmark Progress against comparable

cities● Validate findings using federal and 3rd party

data● Use FME to automate indicator data retrieval

Census API● Census publishes American Community Survey

yearly● API provides data from 2011 - 2014● Example for Travel Time to work:

http://api.census.gov/data/2014/acs1?get=NAME,B08303_001E,B08303_002E,B08303_003E,B08303_004E&for=place:55000&in=state:22&key=YOUR_API_KEY

Let’s look at the Workflow

Python Caller Transformer

Attribute Renamer

Calculate & Aggregate

Socrata Writer → data.nola.gov

Voila…. https://data.nola.gov/d/qwed-53qf

Parameters to handle future years

Lessons Learned● There is a limit of 50 variables for single call● Need to handle missing data for some

variables & geographies● The type of ACS year (1,3,5) is dependent on

the population size of a geographical area so that sample is representative of it

● Categorical measurements may change over years

Thanks to Melissa with the City of New Orleans for giving us this amazing task!

Resources● ResultsNOLA● github.com/socrata/connectors/cen

sus● ACS 1 YR API documentation● census.gov/developers

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