census_getter

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census_getter is a tool to get Census 5-year ACS data using an expression file. The expression file provides information to the program- each row specifies information about which variables should be retrieved and how they should be aggregated. Currently, this tool returns data at the block group level- data at the tract level is apportioned to the block group either by total households or total population, which is also specified in the expresson file.

Installation

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1. Setup census api key as an env variable

   • Get a free census api key here: https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html
   • Save your api key as an env variable named CENSUS_KEY

2. Install uv

   1. Open Powershell as administrator
   2. Enter the following:

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"
   

3. Switch to CMD and clone the census_getter repository

   git clone https://github.com/psrc/census_getter.git
   

4. Try running an example: Starting from the census_getter directory run:

   uv run census_getter\run.py -c examples\population_synthesizer\configs_census_getter
   

5. Setup and run a new example project

   1. Create a new folder in census_getter\examples
   2. Copy configs directory from another example
   3. Customize what ACS data to download in configs_census_getter\census_getter_expressions.csv
   4. Customize which steps to run and other settings in configs_census_getter\settings.yaml
   5. Run example using steps from above starting in the census_getter directory

      uv run census_getter\run.py -c examples\<example_dir>\configs_census_getter
      

   6. Use -c argument if you want to use a different configs folder and settings.yaml:

      uv run census_getter\run.py -c <path to configs folder>
      

6. Run populationsim as a step within pypyr pipeline

   1. Copy the configs_popsim folder to your project
   2. Make sure in configs_census_getter/settings.yaml that configs_popsim points to the popsim configs directory