10 Zip Code Research
In the first weeks of the course we are spending some time thinking about important conceptual issues. We’ve contrasted methods with methodology and thought about various ways of classifying research approaches.
In this writing project we will compare a number of kinds of data and use those to reflect on the key themes in these discussions.
This will be a study of your zip code.
- As a first step, please write down your personal ideas and images about your zip code, who lives there, what happens there, what the culture is, what the area(s) within it are called and so on. This is like an autoethnography. If you are not sure of the boundaries of your zipcode this is a quick way to get a map . You may want to reflect on aspects of your positionality as part of this section. It is important to at least write out your notes on this prior to doing the remaining parts.
- Explore the Census bureau data about your zip code. The census uses Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) rather than zip codes because zip code boundaries and census boundaries do not always match and that can also change over time. Here is an example of the kinds of data that exist for zipcodes. (I have been trying to find the exact way to reproduce this for an arbitrary ZCTA and thus far editing the URL below in the two places with the zip code is what has worked for me.
https://data.census.gov/profile/ZCTA5_10468?g=860XX00US10468
But there are many more possibilities. Check out ACS (American Community Survey) data by ZCTA. The Narrative profile and the data profile are good places to start.
Find what is interesting and relevant for you. You can also make comparisons to the state or nation if you want.
This is an example of using descriptive statistics and secondary data (meaning collected by someone else). - Go to Claritas and explore the free version of the Zip Code Lookup. Explore the top 5 “segments” of households living in your zip code. Make sure to read the details on each segment. Do they seem accurate? How is the story they tell different from or the same as that in the other sources you looked at? Claritas is a “big data” company and their segmentation (to simplify) is based on inductive cluster analysis of vast troves of data, more or less data mining. Many organizations will purchase such data for various purposes.
- Spend at least an hour physically exploring your zip code from a research perspective. Think about people, places and things. How much variation do you see below the zip code level? While doing this, consider how to ensure that your observations are really reflective of the ZCTA. This is a very brief qualitative observation or “instant ethnography.”
Of course there are many other research approaches you could take in studying your zip code. What you do depends on what you are trying to learn.
Take your research results and write them up into a report. This will be mainly about writing descriptively and integrating various data sources, but a strong work will also bring in concepts that we have discussed or used as part of the course. You want to move beyond description to something more analytical.
This is due by September 20.