[CTPP] Thoughts on defining PUMAs

Nandu Srinivasan, Ed Christopher and I have put together a BASIC flowchart and figures showing a couple of situations you may want to consider when you work with your State Data Center on defining Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) for Census 2000 PUMS. These notes are primarily for large metropolitan areas. The Census Bureau documentation, posted to the TRB Census Subcommittee at: www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/articles/pumaguidelines.pdf, has more detail for working with areas with smaller populations. These notes have not yet been reviewed by the Census Bureau Geography Division, so we hope that we haven't made any major errors! You may have specific issues for your areas, particularly where cities cross county and/or state boundaries, which we have not addressed in these notes. We are hoping that there is active participation by the transportation community in the work to be completed by the State Data Centers. A list of the SDCs can be found at http://www.census.gov/pub/sdc/www/sdctxt.html Elaine Murakami, Federal Highway Administration elaine.murakami(a)fhwa.dot.gov