[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-… 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(a)camsys.com www.camsys.com