Finding Suburbia in the Census

Todd K. Gardner, U.S. Census Bureau

Despite developing a wealth of geographic data, the U.S. Census Bureau has never provided a definition of "suburb". A project is underway to fill this void and create a more detailed typology that reflects the diversity of settlement patterns not captured in the urban/rural dichotomy. A number of approaches are under consideration, most of which are based on data at a given point in time. This is understandable given the great number of geographic boundary changes that occur, but using a historical database where geographic boundaries are held constant allows us to create a settlement typology that takes the development history of a given area into account. The Historical Housing Unit and Urbanization Database 2010 (HHUUD10) provides estimates of housing unit density from 1940-2019 for all census tracts as defined in 2010. This database allows us to identify not only urban and rural areas, but inner suburbs, outer suburbs, exurbs and other area types, as well.

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 Presented in Session 151. Beyond the Census--Adding What's Missing and Aggregating What's There