Better Know Your District!
CRB Interactive District Profile Tool Updated
By Devin Lavelle
The California Research Bureau’s most used interactive tool has consistently been the Interactive District Profile Tool.
The tool allows a user to quickly pull up a wide range of data focused on a legislative district, or to compare data from one district against other districts, or against a county or statewide average.
For example, we can find that Assembly District 39 has the most workers (28.7%) with at least an hour-long commute. Commuters disproportionately (75.4%) drive alone and very few take public transit (1.0%). In tradeoff, the district has relatively low-cost housing and has a higher share of owners than the state average.
Another example is Assembly District 54, which has the highest uninsured rate in the state (16.9%, compared to 6.9% statewide). By contrast, the area’s rates of asthma and cardiovascular are close to average, however it has a higher rate of low birthweights. It also has a high share of immigrants (47.5%) and poverty (18%, overall, 27.7% among households with children).
These are just two brief examples of the data available in this tool. With approximately 1,000 data points for each district, there are many opportunities to better understand the legislative districts that make up our great state.
We also have several other dashboards that make various other data available by legislative district, including residential construction, large landlords, population density, and library facilities.
As always, we know what we offer here may just be the beginning and we invite California policymakers and their staff to seek more in-depth answers on the questions raised, or to find inspiration for new applications for these tools that will support the Governor and the Legislature in developing better public policy for the people of California.
Data
The bulk of the data comes from the American Community Survey. The U.S. Census released 2023 data in December and includes specific breakouts by district. This data includes:
- Demographics, including:
- Age
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Veteran Status
- Language
- Nativity
- Disability Status
- Economics, including:
- Income
- Poverty
- Occupation
- Housing, Commute, Educational Attainment & Health Insurance
Health measures and environmental data comes from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) CalEnvironscreen. Data is current as of the Final 4.0 May, 2024 release. Prior to this update, data came from the Draft 4.0 release. Data is released by Census Tract, which is translated to legislative districts using Census crosswalks.
Finally, school testing data comes from the California Department of Education (CDE) California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CASPP). Data is current as of the 2023-24 school year release. Data is released by school, which is translated to legislative districts using the physical locations (long/lat) included in the CDE Public Schools data file.
Comparisons
Data has little meaning in isolation. To better understand the data the tool offers comparisons to other nearby legislative districts, a key county, and the state as defaults. For example, Assembly District 1 is compared to districts 2, 3, 5, and 8, as well as Shasta County and California. These may be helpful, but you may have other needs as well, perhaps focusing on a committee’s membership, a caucus, or other groups of interest. To support those needs and maximize flexibility, the tool includes a custom comparison function, allowing users to compare a primary district to six other entities (Senate or Assembly districts, counties, or the state).
Background
From 2016 to 2018, CRB received a large number of requests for district profiles. Having built out an original profile, working with Krystal Moreno, now chief of staff for Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez, word spread and a number of other legislative staff began requesting them. Building them manually, as one-offs became too large of a project, so CRB worked with the Senate Democratic Caucus to develop and publish an interactive tool, allowing any staff in any office and from any political party to access the full range of information available for their district, on demand.
The tool was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated at least annually since. Updates are typically made shortly after American Community Survey data is updated in December of each year, which coordinates well with updates to CASPP data. CalEnviroscreen data is updated irregularly and may lead to additional mid-year updates.