When your County level flow data does get released (any week now) what
will you do?
Might I suggest that you begin to get ready for it by preparing a county
level trip table with your 1990 data. You can find that data at
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/jtw_workerflow.html. If
you haven't already looked at the 1990 data for your area, you might
want to do it NOW so you can be better prepared for the 2000 data when
it does get released.
Although this is only county level data it can still prove to be
instructive especially the more counties you have. Three different
numbers can be derived. The number of worker flows into an area, the
number leaving the area and the number who live and work in the area.
When working with this data it is always important to keep in mind what
I call the definitional criteria. Some of the key points to understand
is that it 1) represents workers 16 years of age and older; 2) does not
count more than one work trip per worker. A census work trip consists
of the one-way movement from one's place of residence to one's usual
place of work. The actual Census question asked, "At what location did
this person work LAST WEEK? If this person worked at more than one
location, print where he or she worked most last week"; and, 3) assumes
all work trips originate at the place of residence.
Once the 2000 flows are release they will be posted at the Journey to
Work Branch of Population Division at the Census Bureau's web site
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/journey.html
To complement your flow data don't forget about the county and statewide
data profiles housed on the AASHTO website at
http://transportation.org/ctpp. Although this is only the beginning of
a much larger data harvest, there is a lot of descriptive information
and analysis that can be gleaned from these two sources. Besides it is
a good time to begin to understand the nuances and definitional issues
associated with the use of the data.