Download Census 2020 data files by State/DC/PR

Usage

census2020_download(
  folder = NULL,
  mystates = c(state.abb, "DC", "PR"),
  allstates = c(c(state.abb, "DC", "PR"), c("VI", "GU", "MP", "AS")),
  baseurl =
    "https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/",
  urlmiddle = "",
  zipnames_suffix = "2020.pl.zip",
  overwrite = TRUE
)

Arguments

folder: Default is a tempdir. Folder and subfolder for data are created if they do not exist.
mystates: Default is 50 states + DC + PR here. Island Areas are VI GU MP AS. Character vector of 2 letter abbreviations.
allstates: Default is same as mystates default.
baseurl: Default is the URL of the folder with the data
urlmiddle: Default is empty for States info, but for Island Areas, urlmiddle = "demographic-and-housing-characteristics-file/"
zipnames_suffix: last part of the filenames Census provides - default should work
overwrite: set to FALSE to skip download if filename already in folder, but note it does not check if any existing file is corrupt/size zero/obsolete/etc.

Value

Effect is to download and save locally a number of data files.

Details

Attempts to download some basic data files for specified states/etc. from the US Census Bureau's site for Decennial Census file data.

see (https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/technical-documentation/complete-tech-docs/summary-file/2020Census_PL94_171Redistricting_StatesTechDoc_English.pdf)

For Island areas, see https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/technical-documentation/island-areas-tech-docs/dhc/2020-iac-dhc-technical-documentation.pdf or e.g., (https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/island-areas/american-samoa/demographic-and-housing-characteristics-file/2020-iac-dhc-readme.pdf)

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
 # library(census2020download)
 census2020_download('./census2020zip', mystates = c('RI', 'DE'))
 census2020_unzip('./census2020zip','./census2020out')
 c2 <- census2020_read(folder = './census2020out', mystates = c('RI', 'DE'))
 save(c2,file = 'census2020blocks.rdata')
 dim(c2)
 str(c2)
 head(c2)
 sum(c2$POP100)
 plot(
   c2$INTPTLON[substr(c2$GEOCODE,1,2)=='10'],
   c2$INTPTLAT[substr(c2$GEOCODE,1,2)=='10'], pch='.')
 } # }