Abstract:

The Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB) , developed by Geolytics Inc., reports Census Data from 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 for either the geographic boundaries for the corresponding census year or the Census 2000 tract boundaries, regardless of the census year. Output can be viewed and downloaded in tabular format or viewed as a thematic map.

Note, for Census 2000 data, this product contains only short form data (race, age, household type, housing counts). Detailed socio-economic data for 2000 can be obtained from a variety of other products; refer to our guide to Census 2000 products.

When to Use Neighborhood Change Database

Using this product you can extract data in the two ways listed here. Understanding that you have this choice is important when you use this product.

• Retrieve counts for any year that are based on 2000 census boundaries. (Only source for these data)
  Comparing census data across time is difficult because the definitions for both the variables and the geographic boundaries used for reporting can change. The unique feature of this product is that it can normalize historic tract data to 2000 boundaries thus simplifying a comparison.

 
• Retrieve counts for any year that are based on boundaries as defined in year to which the counts apply. (Not the best way to get these data.)
  For most census years, products specific to that year are available and these are more powerful and easier to use if all you need is census counts as they were originally reported. For a list of what is available in EDS, see our complete list of Census products.

Steps for the Using Neighborhood Change Database

You must visit EDS to use NCDB since it is available on the EDS PC Network.

The NCDB program is listed in the applications menu and under Programs -> EDS -> CensusCd in the Start Menu.

Work through the NCDB menu options in the top bar as follows:

• File
  Do not use the file menu options,
• Year
  Chose "all years normalized to 2000" (requests for single years will give data using boundaries for the selected years so these types of downloads should be done using CensusCD70, CensusCD80, etc).
• Counts
  The process here is to select counts from the upper window to move them to lower window.
  The variable list is long and could be browsed but you can arrange variables on a topic.
  In the keywords pull down menu, select a topic and use "paste" button get to items to the search window.
  Hit search counts button, these will then be highlighted.
  You can bring them to the top of the list using the "Browse Last Search results" button.
  If you click on one it will unselect all the highlighted items.
  If you click on the "Add Selected Counts to Report" button all the highlighted items will move to the lower box.
  To make custom selections of multiple entrie, hold down the ctrl key and select what you want before using the "Add selected" button.
  You can also deselect selected items using the "Drop Selected Report Counts" (Adding all on a topic and then deselecting what you do not want is more efficient than trying to select only what you want because in the selected window you are working with a smaller list).
  When selection is finished click on the Green "Done" dot in the upper right.
• Run - View
  These are the same as in other Geolytics products, refer to the guide, CensusCD+Maps at EDS.
• Output
  Output is automatically saved to the My Dcouments folder.
  All files will be called NONAME with varying extensions.
  .doc files are documentation for the column headers
  .req files are extraneous and can be ignored
  .shp, .dbf, .csv .txt are formats for the data and reflect the choses you made in the "Run" menu.
  To preserve these files, move them to your own work directory in My Documents as they will be over written the next time an NCDB request is made.