and 10 new ones) were reviewing or delineating census tracts for the 1930 census.
This increased interest in census tracts was due largely to the promotional efforts of Howard Whipple Green, a statistical consultant working in Cleveland, Ohio. Having experienced data problems similar to those faced by Dr. Laidlaw, he found that census tracts were a solution. In 1931, the American Statistical Association appointed Mr. Green chairman of its newly formed Committee on Census Enumeration Areas. Along with this appointment came the unofficial assignment to promote the delineation of census tracts in large cities throughout the country. Over the next 25 years, he worked hard at this task, contacting interested people in other cities, encouraging the formation of local committees, and publicizing uses for census tract data in a newsletter.[1]
In his dealing with the local committees, Mr. Green often found it convenient to identify one individual in each city as a point of contact. He called these individuals key persons. The committees themselves became known as census tract committees. These were the forerunners of the present-day census statistical areas committees (see Chapter 3, “Local Census Statistical Areas Committees and Other Local Assistance”). For the 1940 census, the Census Bureau adopted the census tract as an official geographic entity to be included in data tables of the standard publications of the decennial census. This relieved the census tract committees of the need to purchase the data tabulations and to fund their publication. In 1955, upon Mr. Green’s retirement, the Census Bureau assumed the functions of promoting and coordinating the delineation of census tracts.
Both census tracts and BNAs provide the geographic framework for delineating block groups, assigning census block numbers, and tabulating and presenting the resultant data. In 1940, the Census Bureau began publishing census block data for all cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants. In cities that had census tracts, it assigned the block numbers by census tract; in
Notes and References
- ↑ Green, Howard Whipple, “A Period of Great Growth and Development: 1926–1946,” American Statistical Association, Golden Anniversary of Census Tracts. 1956, Washington, DC: n.p., 1956 [reprinted in the Census Bureau’s Proceedings of the National Geographic Areas Conference, Putting It Together for 1990, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984].
Census Tracts and Block Numbering Areas10-3
