Over the past several months, many Compass users have asked how to find data for their county. Susan Brower points out some interesting county trends and walks us through the steps to finding it on Compass.
Which counties have grown the most so far this decade?
Since 2000, there has been tremendous growth in the suburban counties of Scott and Carver, and the exurban counties of Sherburne, Wright, Isanti, and Chisago. Each of these counties has grown between 20 and 40 percent since 2000. In contrast, many Greater Minnesota counties in the Northwest, West Central, and Southwest regions have lost a fair amount of their population over the last 10 years, with many counties declining 10 percent or more since 2000.
If you want to learn more about your particular county, one place to look on the Compass site is the county’s profile found on that county’s regional home page. For example, Itasca County’s At a glance profile contains Compass Key Measures, and displays the most recent data compared with data from the reference year of 2000. Profiles like this one give you an easy way to look at a range of indicators, but they are just a small portion of the data available for your county on our site.
Additional county-level data can be accessed through the Topic Areas found in the black banner that runs across the top of each web page on the site. If you want to know more about how grade school children are faring in your county, for example, one place to go would be the “3rd grade reading” Key Measure in the “Education” Topic area. Select either the “By county (map)” or the “By county (ranking)” from the “Breakdowns” menu option to compare your county to others in the state. The county ranking for this measure shows us that between 42 and 96 percent of students at the county-level met or exceeded proficiency in 3rd grade reading. When you look at the ranking lists and maps, please note, however, that some of these percentages move around quite a bit for the smaller counties. You can see how many students were tested in each grade by clicking on “Data & notes” under the “View” menu. This table will also give you detailed historical trend data for every county in Minnesota.
And since we’re in the Education topic area, be sure to check out the breakdowns that contain school-district level data. To access these sub-county estimates, select “Statewide” from the “Region” menu and select “By district” from the “Breakdowns” selection option, or select "by regional districts" with the "Region" menu set to your specific region, for example, in the Southern region.
Although Education key measures are listed by district, many of the other Key Measures have city-level data available as well.
Finally, be sure not to miss the county-level data contained within the Demographics section. In this topic area you can find data on child poverty, population aging, educational attainment, as well as a range of other contextual data. Remember, you can always access the historical estimates and the census estimates for the less populated counties by selecting the “Data & notes” under the “View” menu from any of the county maps and ranking tables.
Can I expect more data about my county in the future?
Yes, we will be updating county data as regularly as it is released by our many data providers.
In addition, the Census Bureau has plans to release new estimates for every county in the state later this year. These data, from the American Community Survey, provides the basis for many of the indicators on the Compass site and so this data release will be the first opportunity to look at change in some of the less populated counties (those with populations less than 20,000) since the 2000 census. Each year forward, new estimates will be added from this ongoing survey.
What if I still can’t find the data that I want?
E mail us and let us know what you’re looking for. There are real people at the other end of our e mail submission form, and we correspond regularly (and quickly, if I do say so myself) with users about data questions. If we don’t have what you are looking for in our Compass database, we can likely point you in the right direction of the data you need. Your feedback and questions also help guide our decisions about what to include on the site in the future, so we welcome any comments you have for us.
Susan Brower is a research associate on the Compass project. She specializes in demography, survey research and quantitative analysis. Susan holds a B.A. in Social Work from St. Olaf College, a Master's degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and a Master's degree in Sociology from the University of Michigan.