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  • 1.  List of census tracts associated with Central Business Districts (CBD)

    Posted 10-19-2020 08:56 PM

    Hello! I am looking for a list of Central Business Districts (CBDs) and the corresponding Census Tracts that make up the CBDs. In this Census paper, there is a link to to a dataset that appears to be what I am looking for: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cbd.html. But unfortunately, this link appears to be dead.

    Does anyone know where I can find such a list of CBDs and associated tracts on the new Census website or elsewhere? Thanks!



  • 2.  RE: List of census tracts associated with Central Business Districts (CBD)

    Posted 10-19-2020 09:59 PM

    It looks like the CBD program was done away with in the early 1980s: https://web.archive.org/web/20120925011908/https://www.census.gov/geo/www/cbd.html

    In this day of malls and sprawl and metropolitan reefs, it'd be interesting to apply their 40 year old definitions to see how well they hold up.



  • 3.  RE: List of census tracts associated with Central Business Districts (CBD)

    Posted 10-19-2020 10:11 PM

    The wayback machine is a great solution for this - thanks for pointing that out!

    And yes, I'm sure there will be many adjustments that need to be made to those tracts in this day...



  • 4.  RE: List of census tracts associated with Central Business Districts (CBD)

    Posted 10-20-2020 08:42 AM

    I created a CBD file in 2004/updated in 2008 following a Brookings methodology with 2010 tracts for the top 100 metros. LED wasn't in public use then, but you could run that data with our LED file to determine a general rule to update the tracts to today's economy.

    https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/30571/411941-High-Cost-and-Investor-Mortgages.PDF (for reference, how we used it)

    https://urbanorg.box.com/s/72d9059qzbbykw9z0utih665k5sdp47v (brookings paper)

    https://datacatalog.urban.org/dataset/longitudinal-employer-household-dynamics-origin-destination-employment-statistics-lodes

    I don't think it was meticulously documented, but I have the general steps/programs and am happy to share. I'll pull the file from the archive and send along in the next couple of days.

    -Kathy Pettit



  • 5.  RE: List of census tracts associated with Central Business Districts (CBD)

    Posted 01-11-2021 04:21 AM

    Hi Kathy - apologies for missing this until now and thanks for your response! The Brookings paper dataset looks very useful even if for only the top 100 metros. In fact, having a list of zip codes with distance to CBD is exactly what I am trying to construct. Would appreciate if you are able to share if it is not too much trouble (either the data or the steps/program)