[CTPP] MPO Assistance in Census 2000 Place of Work Geocoding

Last December, we sent a message to this listserve to see how many MPOs would be willing and/or able to assist the Census Bureau in resolving the most difficult to geocode place of work responses from Census 2000. We received responses from over a hundred agencies, the vast majority indicating that they would participate in such a program. Some of you may remember that a similar activity was planned for the 1990 Census, but the Bureau never implemented it and no MPOs were given an opportunity to contribute. Based on the number of favorable responses to our December inquiry, I went forward within the Bureau to try to get approval for this activity for Census 2000. I spoke with our Policy Office and with our Legal department. Some questions about confidentiality and Title 13 requirements were raised, and I was directed to present my case to the Bureau's Disclosure Review Board (DRB). I submitted a request to the DRB for approval to implement the program, emphasizing that the information provided to the MPOs would not be individual responses. Rather, we would group responses from several people that seemed to represent the same employer or workplace location, building synthetic responses or what we call "clusters." In effect, the MPOs would be receiving address information culled from a number of census questionnaires. In mid-March I received a decision from the Disclosure Review Board. They turned down my request to implement a program that would allow MPOs to assist in Census 2000 geocoding. It was felt that the addresses provided to the MPOs would become a microdata file of working places, and the Census Bureau does not release such files at the street address level or by employer name. Therefore, we will not be contacting any of you for assistance with our geocoding operation. I would like to thank those of you who responded to our December inquiry; I appreciate everyone's willingness to devote valuable time and resources to projects such as this, the TAZ-UP program, and the Workplace Update program. I look forward to continuing to work with you on our next big joint project, the Census Transportation Planning Package 2000. --Phil Salopek Chief, Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch Population Division US Census Bureau