WHY WOULD I WANT CENSUS TRACT DATA?

Let's say you're looking to locate a small business in San Francisco. Getting data for the whole city isn't going to do you much good. You need data for only a certain part of the city. In other words, data for a certain district or neighborhood. This is where tract-level data is most valuable.

Perhaps you're filling out a grant application and need information on the demographic and economic characteristics of people in your immediate vicinity. Again, census tract projections are the way to go because getting data for the whole city will not accurately portray the area in which you are interested.

If you need data for areas smaller than a whole city you have two choices. Zip code data and Census Tract data. Both are available from the Census Bureau, online, using American Factfinder. However, the Census Bureau data does not go out to 2035 as the ABAG census tract projections do. A lot can change since the last census. Thus, ABAG's Projections 2007 by Census Tract is a valuable and unique resource.