[acs-r] Creating 3-digit ZCTA data

[Ezra Haber Glenn]

My understanding of ZCTAs (based on
<https://factfinder.census.gov/help/en/zip_code_tabulation_area_zcta.htm>)
is that the three-digit ones were only used for the 2000 census (and
unfortunately, even for that data, the census does not provide data by
ZCTA through their API).

You can certainly get more recent ACS data for ZCTAs, but they are
always five digits.  For example:

> all.zips=geo.make(zip.code="*")
> zip.pops=acs.fetch(endyear=2015, geography=all.zips, table.number="B01003")
> head(zip.pops)
ACS DATA: 
 2011 -- 2015 ;
  Estimates w/90% confidence intervals;
  for different intervals, see confint()
            B01003_001    
ZCTA5 00601 17982 +/- 287 
ZCTA5 00602 40260 +/- 167 
ZCTA5 00603 52408 +/- 810 
ZCTA5 00606 6331 +/- 293  
ZCTA5 00610 28328 +/- 205 
ZCTA5 00612 64816 +/- 1468
>

I'm not sure what you are trying to do, but perhaps you could download
the data you need for all the zip codes, and then aggregate by the
first three digits?

--Ezra

On Tue, 21 Mar 2017 19:04:26 -0400, Campbell, Ron (NBCUniversal) wrote:
> 
> I’m sure there’s a simple answer to this. My attempts so far have
> crashed and burned.
> 
> I’m trying to create ACS estimates of population from Table B01003
> for 3-digit ZCTAs nationwide. I need these as a basis for measuring
> per capita rates of some other data that is available only at the
> 3-digit ZCTA level.
> 
> I have a data frame of 33,000 5-digit ZCTAs with total estimated
> population, the margin of error and the 3-digit ZCTA (a substring of
> the 5-digit ZCTA). I want to create a new data frame consisting of
> 3-digit ZCTAs with their estimated populations and margin of error.
> 
> I tried to do this using variations on the geo.make() function:
> 
> > census2 = geo.make(substring(census1$ZCTA5,1,3))
> Error: evaluation nested too deeply: infinite recursion / options(expressions=)?
> 
> And
> 
> > census2 = geo.make(census1, combine=TRUE, combine.term='ZCTA3')
> Error in (function (us, region, division, state, county, county.subdivision,  : 
>   (list) object cannot be coerced to type 'double'
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Ronald Campbell
> Data Editor
> NBC Owned Television Stations
> 1411 N. Batavia St., Suite 113
> Orange, CA 92867
> cell: 818-232-2585
> ron.campbell at nbcuni.com
> @campbellronaldw
> 
> [cid]   
> 
> 
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--
Ezra Haber Glenn, AICP
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave., Room 7-346
Cambridge, MA 02139
eglenn at mit.edu 
http://dusp.mit.edu/faculty/ezra-glenn
617.253.2024 (w)
617.721.7131 (c)