Sprawling around

The following is a handout from the "Investigating Sprawl: Techniques and Revelations" panel at the IRE National Conference in June.

By Rose Ciotta The Philadelphia Inquirer and Greg Reeves The Kansas City Star

Sprawl is not new unless you haven't done the story in your town. Americans have been moving to the suburbs since before World War II, but the impact of this exodus has often been hidden. Here's a list of data sets to help you dig out how sprawl has affected your coverage area:

1) U.S. Census - There's valuable info here even as we wait for the first Census 2000 data on Dec. 31 of next year. The Census Library in Washington, D.C. can send you population and other demographic data for your area back to pre-Civil War days. Charting county-to-county population moves by census tract since World War II gives the basic picture of sprawl for most areas.

www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/tups0027.html www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/countypop.html

2) U.S. Census Building Permits - Place level data on the number of housing units from single family to doubles, triples and buildings with more than five units built every month or every year. Data are collected in a mail survey of localities that issue the building permits. Dates to 1980 easily; some earlier years are available on paper. Can be compared to units in structure in census. Annual and monthly data dating to 1980 are available on diskette from the bureau's Construction Division at (301) 457-1321. www.census.gov/ftp/pub/const/www/c40index.html

3) Local Property Roll including Sales Data - Tracking number of housing units and property values year by year in your area can provide real-life contrast between urban and suburban trends. Also, property taxes in some areas become grossly inequitable between newer and older homes because of the lack of updated reassessments. This is an important public policy question and can make for a high-impact story. Property assessment databases in most areas are public record, and should be part of your basic CAR data set. Data on the relationship of assessment to sales will help you pinpoint areas usually in the inner ring that are losing their value. The result is often that owners of lower valued homes pay a higher proportion of taxes than expensive homes. Look for public ownership of buildings. As population shifts, more residential property is abandoned in the inner city and inner ring. Use the roll to examine who is selling and who is buying the land where development is occurring.

Sprawl is not new unless you haven't done the story in your town but the impact of this exodus has often been hidden.

4) HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) Data - Who applies for home loans by census tract, income and race as well as who gets approved and denied. Issued annually by the FFIEC (Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council) - one loan application, one record. This data will allow you how to illustrate the impact of sprawl on minorities. The data shows where banks have loaned money for home purchases and the demographics of the buyer including race and income. The purpose of the disclosure law is to help the feds determine whether banks are serving local housing needs and to identify discriminatory lending patterns. Last year, 7,925 banks, savings associations and credit unions reported 16.4 million loan applications for 1997.

www.ffiec.gov

5) FHA and VA Mortgages - Say hello to your local recorder of deeds office. Pick a subdivision that sprang up during the big move to the suburbs. Look up the mortgage on each parcel federally subsidized Federal Homes Administration and Veterans Administration mortgages are easy to spot. How much of a role did the federal government play in your area in contributing to the move to suburbia?

6) IRS Migration Data - Track yearly movement of people from counties. These data are especially useful if your area has seen the movement of people from a city county to a suburban county. Provides demographic information on the persons moving, including age range and education. Issued yearly, with 1996-1997 the latest available. Includes the number of tax returns (which can be used to approximate the number of households), number of personal exemptions (which can be used to approximate the population), and, for the first time, adjusted gross income (AGI) and median AGI. (202) 874-0410. www.irs.ustreas.gov

7) Highway Volume Data - Most states and counties keep track of traffic volume. Looking at travel over time can reveal changing residential patterns. Also examine the type of road, what it was designed to carry and the volume it does carry.

8) FBI Uniform Crime Reports - Annually issued data reveal the frequency of crimes by cities and towns. If you analyze these data over time, they will likely reveal increasing crime in the inner city. Suburban residents often cite increasing crime to justify their move to the suburbs. www.fbi.gov

9) Campaign Contributions - by builders to local officials making decisions about new developments, to county-level officials who often drag their feet on countywide planning and to state lawmakers who often refuse to impose planning requirements on localities. Also look for contributions from environmentalists lobbying for smart growth initiatives.

10) Business Property Tax Breaks - for property data to show special exemptions for new businesses that locate in new residential areas. Calculate how much in local property taxes they are saving.

11) County and ZIP Business Patterns - County-level data that reflect the number of businesses by category, number of employees and payroll value from 1988 through 1996 for county data. ZIP code level data have been published annually since 1964, with 1994-95 the latest year available on the Census Bureau Web site. These data are especially useful to show how businesses move from the inner ring to the outer ring and the growth of businesses in new residential areas. www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/cbpview.html http://tier2.census.gov/zbp/zbpinfo.htm

12) American Housing Survey - a wealth of information about the nation's housing - apartments, single-family homes, mobile homes, vacant housing units, household characteristics, income, housing and neighborhood quality, housing costs, equipment and fuels, size of housing unit, and recent movers. National data are collected every other year, and data for each of 46 selected metro areas are collected about every four years, with an average of 12 areas a year. The national sample covers an average of 55,000 homes. Each metropolitan area sample covers at least 4,800 homes. The Census Bureau conducts the survey for HUD. You can't get tract-level data from AHS, but you can divide your metro area into several parts, and report hundreds of data items, including estimated cockroaches-per-household. www.census.gov/hhes/www/ahs.html

13) Agricultural data - Track the (shrinking) agricultural acreage in your area over time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture puts out the Census of Agriculture with data on farms from which at least $1,000 of agricultural products were produced and sold in a year. Data is available on a county and state level. The census is taken every five years - during the years ending in "2" and "7." www.nass.usda.gov/census/

14) Other Data - These may include school enrollment and cost per pupil, construction and commercial building permits, contributions by builders, voter registration data or censuses of governments and government finance by the Census Bureau. Local and regional planning departments and agencies often have much data on urban and suburban growth. Some newspapers have also conducted polls on public attitudes toward development and quality of life issues.

Rose Ciotta and Greg Reeves can be reached by e-mail at rciotta@phillynews.com or greeves@kcstar.com