Block/block group level data back to 1960 Decennial

NHGIS
1

Hi! I’m hoping to get block or block-group level data from the Decennial Census for 1960-2000 (and ACS for 2010ish). It looks like block data is available for 1970, 1990, and 2000, and block-group data is available for 1990-forward.

Is this data just not available (even if I got it directly from Census) or has it not yet been added to NHGIS?

2

Hi Elizabeth,

We do not have 1960 block data for NHGIS. It is only available in printed volumes or as scanned PDFs. You can find the 1960 scanned PDFs by following these instructions:

a. Go do https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html
b. Click the Census of Population and Housing, 1960 link
c. Then, click the 1960 Census of Housing link
d. Finally, click the Vol III. City Blocks link
e. You will then be shown a list of cities with links to the scanned volumes

We do not have plans to converted the scanned PDFs to machine-readable data at this time.

We actually have 1980 block data, but it’s a bit difficult to find. Here are instructions for locating them:

So, we do have the 1980 block data, but they are a bit tricky to find! The Bureau published the 1980 block data using two different geographic hierarchies - one for MCD states (e.g., New England states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, etc…) and one for non-MCD states (e.g., California, Nevada, Texas, etc…). There is no easy way for us to reconcile these hierarchies, so we keep them separate.

One of the knock-on effects of keeping them separate means they get “buried” in our website. Here is how you can find them:

  1. Go to NHGIS Data Finder

  2. Open the DATASETS filter popup.

  3. Scroll down to the 1980 Decennial Census and click the plus icon next to 1980_STF1.

  4. Click the Submit button to apply the filter

  5. Now, choose the data tables you want. Click the plus icons to add them to your data cart.

  6. After you’re done selecting tables, click the green CONTINUE button in the data cart.

  7. You will now be on the Options page. Click the SELECT GEOGRAPHIC LEVELS button to open the popup.

  8. Here is the magic trick - in the upper right corner of the popup, you will see a link that says SHOW COMPOUND GEOGRAPHIC LEVELS. Click that link.

  9. Scroll down the popup until you see the work BLOCK. You should see two options nested under BLOCK - one for MCD states and one for non-MCD states. You can click on the plus icons for both.

  10. Click SUBMIT button to apply your choices.

  11. Click the green CONTINUE button in the data cart to move onto the last step.

I hope this helps!

Dave Van Riper

3

Hey Dave-- this is super helpful! Thanks so much!

I think we’ll leave the 1960 data to the paper files, since 1970 is close enough to the first year of the other data that we’re using.

4

Dave,

I believe researchers like Sorensen, Taeuber, and Hollingsworth transcribed some of the block level data from tapes years ago, around 1976. In their case they did it for 109 cities for 1940, 1950, 1960, and 1970. They could not have been the only ones, yet nothing is here on the IPUMS website after all these years. It would be great if IPUMS located and collected that data for future researchers. I’d be happy to ask permission and give credit to the original data collectors if we could only find their data!

Thanks

5

Dear Larry,

It would be great if we could find those block-level statistics for 1940-1960! I think they would be a definite asset to NHGIS and the broader research community. I’ve seen the paper that lists the segregation indices for the 109 cities but have never come across the underlying data. Anything you (or others) could do to facilitate access would be greatly appreciated!

Dave