California Rural Communities (CARUCOM)

Purpose

The California Rural Community (CARUCOM) data base is a service of Rural Migration News. It was created for city planners, researchers, and students who want access to census statistical profiles of rural California communities. The data base will be under construction for the next few months. We will put new communities, census years, and variables on line as they become available. In the meantime send suggestions and corrections to Rural Data Comments

Data Source

The CARUCOM data were assembled from the Urban Institute's Under Class Data Base (UDB) for the 1980 and 1990 census years. This data base contains social, demographic, economic, and housing data on census tracts across the United States. Tracts may be viewed as approximating large neighborhoods because they tend to contain groups of residents with similar social characteristics, economic status, and housing conditions. Typically, a census tract includes between 2,500 and 8,000 persons. To illustrate the geographic detail provided by census tracts, in 1990 there were 9 census tracts in both Watsonville and Parlier.

Data Selection

We first extracted data on all census tracts in California's 11 major agricultural regions. With the aid of census maps, we then identified all tracts contained entirely or partly in rural towns with populations of between 1,000 and 20,000 and with 8 percent or more of their workforces employed principally in agriculture. The data include information on 47 variables for each of 66 California rural towns scattered across the counties of Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Merced, Monterey, Napa, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, and Ventura. Although there were some changes in census tracts between 1980 and 1990, the UDB utilizes a "comparability file" produced by the Census Bureau to reconfigure data from 1990 into tract boundaries used in the 1980 Census. This makes it possible to track changes in demographic and economic characteristics of the communities we have "constructed" from these census tracts over time.

For each community included in the data base, a wide array of demographic and socioeconomic variables and percentage changes in these variables between 1980 and 1990 is available. The available communites may be selected either from the list or from the clickable map below. The data are of course constructed from specific Census Bureau categories, in order to see how the data follow from Census definitions, consult this description file.To download the master file from which the individual tables were created click here. (The file is 68k and is saved in tab delimited text so should be readable by any spreadsheet program.)

Data Notes

Community Characteristics

For the purpose of comparison here are some tables which rank the CARUCOM communties according to key variables of interest:

List of Communities

County Town  Census Tract Number
Fresno Carruthers  75
Coalinga  80
Del Rey  69
Easton  18
Firebaugh  84
Huron  78
Kerman  40
Laton  74
Mendota  83
Orange Cove  65
Parlier  68
San Joaquin  82
Sanger  60, 61, 62
Selma  70, 71
Imperial Brawley  103
Calexico  119, 120, 121, 122
Calipatria-Niland  101
Holtville  109
Imperial  110
Seeley  111
Westmorland  102
Kern Arvin  63
Buttonwillow  37
Lamont-Weedpatch  64
McFarland  47
Shafter City  41
Wasco  44
Kings Armona  5
Avenal  17
Corcoran  13, 14, 15
Kettleman City  16
Merced Delhi  2
Dos Palos  24
Livingston  3
Planada  19
Monterey Castroville  104
Gonzales  108
Greenfield  112
King City  113
Las Lomas  102
Soledad  111
Napa Calistoga  2020
St. Helena  2016
San Joaquin Hughson  47
Lockeford  29
Stanislaus Patterson  32
Tulare Cutler  6
Dinuba  5 
Earlimart  44
East Porterville  39
Exeter  15
Farmersville  14, 15, 16
Ivanhoe  8
Lindsay  26, 28
London  3
Orosi  2
Pixley  42
Poplar-Cotton  34
Richgrove  43
Strathmore  33
Terra Bella  45
Tipton-Woodville  32
Woodlake  7
Ventura El Rio  50
Fillmore  3
Piru  2

 
Alameda Kings Placer Sierra
Alpine Lake Plumas Siskiyou
Amador Lassen Riverside Solano
Butte Los Angeles Sacramento Sonoma
Calaveras Madera San Benito Stanislaus
Colusa Marin San Bernardino Sutter
Contra Costa Mariposa San Diego Tehama
Del Norte Mendocino San Francisco Trinity
El Dorado Merced San Joaquin Tulare
Fresno Modoc San Luis Obispo Tuolumne
Glenn Mono San Mateo Ventura
Humboldt Monterey Santa Barbara Yolo
Imperial Napa Santa Clara Yuba
Inyo Nevada Santa Cruz
Kern Orange Shasta

California Clickable Map

Click on one of the colored counties to see the communities available in that county. Then click on the communtiy within the specific county. Remember to click on the dot and not on the name of the town! 

This page created by Eric Van Dusen - 8/1/96. Last Update: 1/18/99. Please sends comments or suggestions to: Rural Data Comments.