[acs-r] Best way to visualize ACS data?

[Anon RUser]

Hello,

I was very excited to learn about the R ACS package and think that it can
be extremely useful for me.  I would like to create visualizations of
demographic data.   For example, on Ezra's blog he explains how to get all
census tract population data for Middlesex county:

> my.tracts=geo.make(state="MA", county="Middlesex", tract="*")
> acs.fetch(geography=my.tracts, table.number="B01003")

I have two questions:

1.  I would like to turn this data into a choropleth, but don't know how.
I have created choropleths using ggplot2 as described in the R Graphics
Cookbook (
http://www.amazon.com/R-Graphics-Cookbook-Winston-Chang/dp/1449316956).
There they call ggplot2's "map_data()" function.  But while map_data can
accept "usa" or "county", I don't think that it supports census tracts, so
I don't know how to create a choropleth of this data.

2.  How does table.number correspond to ACS question number?  I found what
appears to be a complete list of ACS questions here:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/about_the_survey/questions_and_why_we_ask/

How do these questions map to the table.number parameter?  For example, I
would like to make a choropleth showing the ratio of people in Middlesex
county who speak a language other than English at home (ie "% of people
answering 'yes' to question 14(a)").  I don't know how to translate this to
a table.number.

Thank you very much!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/private/acs-r/attachments/20130705/b51d37e7/attachment.htm