Hi All,

I have used the AS Alchemist and I too like the interface.  I was not able to successfully create census tract or blockgroup results. 

I was wondering if someone else has experienced this and was able to work around it. 

Martin Catala

813-974-9791

catala@cutr.usf.edu

From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Liang Long
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:55 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] An Alternative to Access ACS 5-year Block Group Data

Hi, all

If you are frustrated by getting the ACS 5-year block group level data via Census Bureau ftpsite or DataFerrett, ACS Alchemist may be a good alternative.  

I just tested ACS Achemist that was developed by Azavea & Temple University and I think it's easy to use.  But keep in mind that only ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data are available in the ACS Alchemist.  If you are looking for 1-year or 3-year data, you still need Census Bureau data access tools including American Fact finder and DataFerrett.

ACS Achemist is an open source tool that enables the extraction of ACS 2005-2009 and ACS 2006-2010 data on different level of geographic aggregation, i.e., counties, county sub-division, tracts, blockgroups, etc.  .  The user interface is very straightforward and is a simple step-by-step process.  The thing I like most is that output is saved as the shapefile and you can process your data in the GIS.  The think I like least is that uses will have to create a variable file to define which data they want to get.  The sample of a variable file can be find in the readme document which is included in the software installation package, but I attached one here for your convenience.

Here is the link to the ACS Alchemist home page:

http://www.azavea.com/news/archive/2012/7/31/azavea-and-temple-universitys-center-for-security-and-crime-science-announce-the-release-of-acs-alchemist-an-open-source-software-tool-to-access-census-data/

Here is the link to download the software package:
https://github.com/azavea/acs-alchemist/downloads

Enjoy!


Liang Long
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
4800 Hampden Lane
Suite 800
Bethesda, MD 20814
tel  301 347 9141
fax 301 347 0101
FHWA 202-366-6971
e-mail  llong@camsys.com
www.camsys.com