The Census Bureau is developing and expanding a data tool that’s intended to help businesspeople or those aspiring to start a business.

Version 2.5 of a suite of service intended to provide selected demographic and economic data from the Census Bureau tailored to specific types of uses in a simple to access and use form is getting there, but not everything is ready from prime time, yet. The Esri Community, where customers, partners, Esri staff, and others in the GIS and geospatial professional community – connect, collaborate, and share experience, have moved the mapping functions forward. But there are holes in the data collection – especially when you get down to the city level. Some of that is because the data hasn’t been linked up yet and there are elements that are not disclosed. For example, a lot of the data about business revenue, workforce, etc. won’t be disclosed on the local level

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a helpful tool. Here’s an example of just one data run.

If you plug in interest for the restaurant business and select Kingsport, you get an Excel workbook with nine data sheets. One of the sheets that does provide some interesting information is where and how local consumer spend their money.  One example is: local consumers spend an average of $2,456 per household a year eating out compared to $3,939 for food consumed at home.  And off that money spent on food to be consumed at home 34% goes for snacks while fruits and veggies account for 18% of the money spent.

Categories: ECONOMY