Background:

For this project the goal was to become more familiar with data sources, and downloading particular datasets from online sources. In the aim of gaining experience that might transition into a job field outside of school, I choose to get the data from the US Government Census Bureau. The Census Bureau provides quality data about the nation’s people and economy. This data provides law makers with dynamic information to determine decisions that congress makes, as well as provide greater knowledge about community services, and distribution of federal funds. As an independent geospatial information systems analyst, quality data of this kind allows me to use Esri programming to spatially plot this detailed information to provide clarity and organization of the information for my employers depending on their specifications. For this mock exercise, I was contacted by a company specializing in retirement facilities. The company wants to expand business to other locations in Wisconsin, and would like my suggestions as to which counties may provide the most prosperous locations to build the new facilities.

Methods:

To begin this project for the retirement home, I first needed to download the correct data off the online server. I choose the US Census Bureau website. This website is accessible to anybody, but care must be taken to assure that the data that is needed the individual contains information of use. The data provided off the website comes in several varieties, differing in complexity and depth. The most basic of all the information is the 2010 SF1 100% data, this data provides accurate counts of all persons living in the US and if collected every 10 years. Information included is total population, age, household size, racial backgrounds, and housing units along with other relationships. A more detailed data set available is produced by The American Community Survey (ACS) Estimates, which contains data back until 2005. The content of the survey reveals data about employment, education, economic, and ethnic characteristics. Since all social data is 100% correct, the ACS is an estimate and the census provides the error.

After taking steps on the Census website (factfinder2.census.gov) to narrow the criteria search by geography, to Wisconsin. Then looking at population data for the counties in Wisconsin I found a SF1 dataset that contained information about the total population listed inside the counties in 2010. I next downloaded the data into an excel file and moved the set over to ArcMap for further use. I used the total population for each county to gain a picture of where population centers generally are located in the state. I did this to look for the biggest appropriate population of size. In general terms, the more people in a given area, the greater the amount of elderly people.

Using a base-map collected from Esri online, and a .shp file downloaded off the census website containing the counties of Wisconsin, I made a choropleth map of population totals per county. The next logical step was to gather another data set from the census containing information about the age of the population normalized by population totals and making another map to compare the already made map of population totals. I accomplished collecting the data in a similar way as the first set, and mapped the age of the population per county. This gave me a second map which to compare the first to and begin to piece together where the next move for a successful retirement village may go in the state.

During the process of making both maps, I learned a valuable skill which relates to using information downloaded of the internet. That skill is using table joins, to get the correct sets of data in the right place so I can effectively map the targeted information. Using this skill allows me a greater range of information distribution.

Results:

A.                                                             B.

Figure 1: The map labeled A displaying the Percent of population over the Age of 65. The increasing darkness of the color blue represents a higher percentage of peoples aged 65 years and older. Compared to map B, map A shows a high percentage of elderly people located in the far north of the state. Map B shows the total population of the state of Wisconsin. The highest counties are in the southern part of the state, containing the large cities Madison, and Milwaukee.  Looking at the north of the state, one can gather that there is less population overall, but a higher percentage of the occupants are of greater age.