Talk Elections

General Politics => Political Geography & Demographics => Topic started by: cinyc on January 14, 2019, 08:55:27 PM



Title: Draft Census VTD Shapefiles
Post by: cinyc on January 14, 2019, 08:55:27 PM
Census released its second (?) draft of 2020 VTD shapefiles for participating partner states. Not every state is participating - at least yet.

Those shapefiles are available for download here (https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/partnership.html) (Click on 2019 Partnership Shapefiles for the 2019 BAS, 2020 PSAP Delineation Phase, and the VTD Verification Phase, then the state & counties).

Unfortunately, the web interface only allows downloading 5 counties at a time.


Title: Re: Draft Census VTD Shapefiles
Post by: Adam Griffin on January 16, 2019, 07:06:10 PM
Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/ (http://ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/)

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.


Title: Re: Draft Census VTD Shapefiles
Post by: cinyc on January 16, 2019, 10:29:10 PM
Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/ (http://ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/)

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.

Isn't the version with the most recent VTD file usually in 18v2? Did you find any VTD files in the 18v3s? I only checked NY & ND, but I didn't.


Title: Re: Draft Census VTD Shapefiles
Post by: Adam Griffin on January 17, 2019, 06:49:24 AM
Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/ (http://ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/)

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.

Isn't the version with the most recent VTD file usually in 18v2? Did you find any VTD files in the 18v3s? I only checked NY & ND, but I didn't.

I think so. I've only looked at GA & MN thus far and there are v3s for it (uploaded January 4 - with a few uploaded on January 10; the v2s I've seen were uploaded/last modified mostly in December).


Title: Re: Draft Census VTD Shapefiles
Post by: cinyc on January 17, 2019, 01:52:47 PM
Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/ (http://ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/)

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.

Isn't the version with the most recent VTD file usually in 18v2? Did you find any VTD files in the 18v3s? I only checked NY & ND, but I didn't.

I think so. I've only looked at GA & MN thus far and there are v3s for it (uploaded January 4 - with a few uploaded on January 10; the v2s I've seen were uploaded/last modified mostly in December).

The v3 versions are generally smaller, and, in my limited experience, don't include VTD shapefiles.


Title: Re: Draft Census VTD Shapefiles
Post by: Adam Griffin on January 19, 2019, 10:56:12 AM
Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/ (http://ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/)

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.

Isn't the version with the most recent VTD file usually in 18v2? Did you find any VTD files in the 18v3s? I only checked NY & ND, but I didn't.

I think so. I've only looked at GA & MN thus far and there are v3s for it (uploaded January 4 - with a few uploaded on January 10; the v2s I've seen were uploaded/last modified mostly in December).

The v3 versions are generally smaller, and, in my limited experience, don't include VTD shapefiles.

Looks like you're right, and I misread your question initially (I thought it was asking merely if there were any v3 files available, assuming they all would have all the same shapefile data).

I had downloaded a single county for GA a few days ago, but it must have been v2, as I've went back to check and found that the v3s for GA don't have any VTD shapefile data.