The Census
Bureau has the following sub-country geographical hierarchy (from
largest to smallest):
Census
tract (definition)
Census
block group (definition)
Census block (definition)
Geographic
Areas Reference Manual This manual
offers a more in depth review of census geography.
Due to
privacy and sampling size concerns, the level at which data
is most readily available is at the census tract level. In
New York City census tracts are typically several square city blocks
and can have populations ranging from 1,500 to 10,000.
Census
tracts are perhaps the most precise geographical units we have access
to. Because they are so small, tracts afford the user a great deal
of specificity in defining custom geographical areas: they can be
used to aggregate anything from borough regions (e.g., the South Bronx)
to neighborhoods (Bedford Park). Census tract definitions can sometiems
be correlated to other geographic boundaries, such as police precincts,
community boards or school districts in order to produce data for
districts that do not exist in the census' own geographical hierarchy.
Unfortunately,
it can be somewhat difficult to figure out which census tracts constitute
your neighborhood. Once you have comprised a list of the census tracts
that constitute your service area, the census website allows you to
download data for just those census tracts.
Find
out which census tracts constitute your neighborhood.
^
top