What's New in Esri Demographics (June 2016)

Esri Demographic content was updated in June. The update focused on datasets in the U.S. and included changes to geography boundaries as well. Here are the highlights:

Geography Changes: While Census geographies typically do not change from year to year, other geographies do. This release contains updated boundaries for ZIP Codes, CBSAs, DMAs, and Places. Places represent the TIGER 2014 boundaries, compared to TIGER 2010 in previous releases.

2016/2021 U.S. Demographics: Esri’s U.S. demographics are updated to represent July 1st of 2016 and 2021.

2010-2014 American Community Survey (ACS): This release contains ACS data that represents averages over 60 months, or five years (2010-2014, inclusive). Several new categories were added that focus on population 65+, retirement and Social Security income, and population <18. Some variables, that are duplicated in Esri’s 2016 U.S. demographics, are no longer available in the ACS dataset from Esri.

Census 2010: Esri has added variables about population and housing units in urbanized areas, urban clusters, and rural areas.

2016 Tapestry Segmentation: The 2016 release includes the number of households by Tapestry segment and the number of adults by Tapestry segment which measures population 18 and up. Esri no longer maintains a Tapestry distribution for (total) population.

2016 Consumer Spending: Esri has combined the latest Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CEX), 2013−2014, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to estimate current spending patterns. Two major changes in the 2013 and 2014 CEX surveys effectively preclude comparison to previous estimates. First, a number of survey items were consolidated resulting in the deletion of more than 90 Esri Consumer Spending variables and the addition of almost 50 new variables. Second, in 2013 the CEX survey changed from reported tax payments to estimated taxes which had the overall effect of reducing consumer expenditures because of higher tax estimates.

2016 Market Potential: This release incorporates Doublebase 2014 survey data from GfK MRI. This new survey has resulted in the deletion of some Esri Market Potential variables as well as some additions.

Also updated were Retail MarketPlace, Business Locations and Summary, Shopping Centers, Traffic Counts, and Crime.

View a detailed list of variables available in this release in the 2016 Esri Demographic and Business List.

How will these updates affect me?

For the Ready-to-Use Maps User within ArcGIS Online

• Over 100 demographic layers and maps for the U.S. are updated.

For Business Analyst and Community Analyst Users

• Business Analyst and Community Analyst users can access the updated data through standard and custom reports as well as color-coded maps and in Smart Map Search.

For the Data Enrichment user in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Maps for Office

• The June 2016 update provides access to the datasets shown above. For a detailed list of attributes, see the Esri Demographics U.S. overview documentation pages.

For the Developer using REST endpoints for Standard Global Demographics & Lifestyle Map Services

• New REST endpoints are available for USA Update Demographics, Consumer Expenditures, Market Potential, Retail MarketPlace, Age by Gender by Race, and American Community Survey (ACS). Attribute names and layer IDs may be different from the 2015 services and apps may need to be updated accordingly.
• The REST endpoints for Shopping Center, Traffic Counts, and Crime map services were updated in June 2016. These services may see some of the following changes:

1. Changes to the layer IDs.
2. Changes to layer names.
3. Changes to attribute field names, IDs, and aliases including additions and deletions.

For the Developer consuming the GeoEnrichment Service

• The underlying datasets behind the GeoEnrichment Service were updated in June 2016. Some of these updates may impact developers  of existing applications which consume the GeoEnrichment Service. Major updates include the following:

1. Changes to the list of layer IDs of the administrative/statistical boundaries.
2. Changes to the list of layer names of the administrative/statistical boundaries.
3. Changes to the list of attributes/analysis variables including additions and deletions.
4. Changes to the list of attributes/analysis variables contained within the standard report templates including additions and deletions.

Whether you are consuming the GeoEnrichment Service through the REST endpoints, or through other APIs or SDKs which rely on it, you should carefully study the changes listed above; determine their impacts to your applications; and update your applications as appropriate.

You can access the updated information by querying the GeoEnrichment Service. To access the service, you will need a valid Esri developer or organizational subscription.

As an additional resource, the developer documentation for the GeoEnrichment Service endpoints of the ArcGIS REST API, the GeoEnrichment widget components (Dijits) of the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, and supporting classes within the GeoEnrichment package of the ArcGIS API for Flex contain useful information describing their parameters or properties, some of which can be affected by the changes described above.