Geocorr 2022 just got better!
Many of our users have been asking when the new, post-Census-2020 Congressional districts would be available in Geocorr. The short answer is that 118th CDs are now included in Geocorr 2022, along with current state legislative districts.
A somewhat longer answer is that the U.S. Census Bureau has not yet released shapefiles or block lists for building 118th CDs or current SLDLs or SLDUs from 2020 tabulation blocks — and is not planning to do so for several months yet.
The Bureau’s Redistricting Data Office (RDO) intends to publish block equivalency files for the 118th Congress and for the 2022 state legislative districts, but not until December of 2022 at the earliest. And, the Bureau’s Geography division will not be releasing block allocation files for the same areas at all. However, the new areas will be published as shapefiles in the cartographic boundary files collection around April or May of 2023. They may also be released with the 2022 TIGER/Line shapefiles, generally around October.
Because of this lack of availability, we obtained new CD and state legislative boundary shapefiles from The American Redistricting Project, merged them, and ran intersections against 2020 TIGER/Line block shapefiles to determine how every block fits into the new districts. This was a tedious process, especially since the block and district shapefiles didn’t line up exactly, but we now have enough data to use for correlations.
With all that said, the new legislative geographies in Geocorr 2022 should be considered provisional until such time as they can be verified via official Census Bureau block equivalency files or shapefiles.
Of lesser interest (mainly for our Missouri users), Geocorr 2022 now also includes the most recent MO library districts.
As always, please contact Glenn Rice (riceg@missouri.edu) with technical questions.