The Census's American Community Survey (ACS) provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the nation's population and housing - and local population and housing - informed by continuous survey data collection. It's uniformly and consistently administered, allowing analysis of trends over time, and easy comparison between any and all locations in the United States.
Beyond the basic demographic questions, Census's American Community Survey has 105 additional questions on social, economic and housing characteristics. Of course, that's the greatest value of this data source: Hundreds of cross-tabulations are possible associating different aspects of population and housing. (Suppose you want to know how housing costs vary across different income levels and across different age groups, and what number of each group have housing costs that dominate the household budget. No problem! There are published cross-tabs for that!) Through a web-based "Feedback Form", the Census Bureau is asking: What five of ACS's 105 questions are "most important to you"? http://www.census.gov/acs/www/about_the_survey/content_review_feedback/ They're asking for participation this week - no later than Friday, July 18. I've described to the Bureau five of the questions that I consider essential. If other data users do likewise, fairly quickly all the bases are covered. After all, as data pros know, there's power in numbers - and what the entire user community has to say about ACS is likely to be quite revealing. Fill out this ACS Content Review Feedback Form. You'll be glad you did. - Todd Graham Principal Forecaster, Metropolitan Council www.metrocouncil.org/data/<http://www.metrocouncil.org/data/> Steering Committee Member, Census State Data Center Network www.census.gov/sdc/network.html<http://www.census.gov/sdc/network.html>
