The Census 2010 Hard-To-Count Interactive Map provides a powerful, interactive mapping tool for community groups, local governments, the media, public officials, and others to help boost participation in the 2010 Census.
The mapping site not only pinpoints census tracts that the U.S. Census Bureau considers difficult to enumerate, it also displays the detailed demographic and housing characteristics that the Census Bureau believes will create challenges to achieving an accurate count in certain communities, allowing census advocates to tailor their activities and messages to address specific barriers, such as language difficulties or low educational attainment.
The site provides interactive maps at the state, metropolitan area, county, and tract level, along with detailed statistics for each area. You can search by address, city, county, and more, the maps allow you to add overlays showing Congressional districts, ZIP Codes, tract-level maps of 2000 Census mail return rates, and recent foreclosure risk.
The project is supported by the Hagdorn Foundation and is coordinated by the Funders Census Initiative.
The Asian American Federation is leading a grassroots Census 2010 campaign to build awareness and motivation to participate in the upcoming Census. The goal of the campaign is to encourage collaboration among all the Asian community organizations active in Census 2010 outreach and to help those organizations target hard to count Asian populations. Mr. Shih will discuss the impact of how data resources like the Census 2010 Hard-To-Count Interactive Map on outreach strategy. Mr. Shih will also outline the re-granting initiative, the paid media campaign, and the direct outreach activities of the Federation around Census 2010.
Howard Shih is the Research and Policy Director for the Asian American Federation. Mr. Shih has authored or co-authored a number of reports on Asian Americans, including an analysis of city government funding to social service organizations serving Asian Americans in New York City, Making America Work: Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the Workforce and Business, various profiles of Asian Americans in New York City, and The State of Asian American Children 2014. Mr. Shih has also been published two articles in UCLA’s AAPI Nexus Journal, one on poverty among Asian New Yorkers and one as a co-author comparing Asians in the New York and Los Angeles metro areas.
In addition, Mr. Shih is responsible for the Federation’s Census Information Center (CIC), officially designated by the Census Bureau as a repository of Census data for improving data access to underserved communities. The CIC collaborates with Asian American community-based organizations to effectively utilize data to serve and advocate on behalf of their constituents. Mr. Shih also led the Federation’s 2010 Census outreach initiative to encourage Asian Americans to fully participate in the decennial census.
Steven Romalewski joined the City University of New York in January 2006 to launch and direct the CUNY Mapping Service as a project of the Center for Urban Research at CUNY’s Graduate Center. The Mapping Service engages with foundations, public agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and other CUNY researchers to use spatial information and analysis techniques to develop and execute applied research projects. They specialize in online applications that provide intuitive access to powerful data sets, displayed visually through interactive maps and in other formats.
Romalewski was awarded a Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University in 1995, and received his MS in urban planning from Columbia in 1998. He also teaches graduate-level GIS courses at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. Prior to joining CUR, Romalewski co-founded and directed the Community Mapping Assistance Project (CMAP) at NYPIRG. During its eight-year history, CMAP enabled dozens of nonprofit, philanthropic, and public service organizations to use computer mapping to visualize data, analyze information geographically, provide services, and otherwise take advantage of the growing power of online mapping systems.
