# Finding Data on Number of Single-Family Homes by Municipality **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989 "2008-01-02T14:38:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![\_Jake\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/439d5e/32.png) [@\_Jake\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Jake_1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/1 "2008-01-02T14:38:43Z")
I’m looking to find out the distribution of the number of single-family homes by municipality. Are there census figures available that would have this information? ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/2 "2008-01-02T15:39:55Z")
This website seems to have lots of data by city… [http://www.city-data.com/](http://www.city-data.com/) ---
**Author:** ![\_Jake\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/439d5e/32.png) [@\_Jake\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Jake_1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/3 "2008-01-02T16:19:13Z")
[QUOTE=dolphinboy] This website seems to have lots of data by city… [http://www.city-data.com/](http://www.city-data.com/) [/QUOTE] Thanks, but that site seems to deal with a city’s population and no the number of single-family homes. Also, I’m looking for the aggregate data so I could create a bell curve that shows how many homes there are in the largest number of municipalities. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/4 "2008-01-02T16:22:03Z")
[Here’s the data](http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en) directly from the US census. Type in the municipality, and you’ll get a brief overview of the data. Scroll to the bottom (“Housing Characteristics”) and click on “show more”. You’ll get a breakdown of housing units, into “1-unit, detached,” “1-unit, attached,” “2 units,” “3 or 4 units,” “5 to 9 units,” “10 to 19 units,” “20 or more units,” “Mobile home,” and “Boat, RV, van, etc.” Looks like you can adjust your search to smaller or larger sections, using state, county, zip code, census tract number, city, etc. The data are (mostly, I think) from 2000, so it’s a little out of date. Hopefully sufficient for what you need. Happy hunting. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/5 "2008-01-02T16:22:15Z")
There’s always the Census Bureau’s website but I assume you already checked that out. > **[Census.gov](https://www.census.gov/)** > > The Census Bureau's mission is to serve as the nation's leading provider of quality data about its people and economy. ---
**Author:** ![\_Jake\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/439d5e/32.png) [@\_Jake\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Jake_1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/6 "2008-01-02T17:55:17Z")
[QUOTE=zut] [Here’s the data](http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en) directly from the US census. Type in the municipality, and you’ll get a brief overview of the data. Scroll to the bottom (“Housing Characteristics”) and click on “show more”. You’ll get a breakdown of housing units, into “1-unit, detached,” “1-unit, attached,” “2 units,” “3 or 4 units,” “5 to 9 units,” “10 to 19 units,” “20 or more units,” “Mobile home,” and “Boat, RV, van, etc.” Looks like you can adjust your search to smaller or larger sections, using state, county, zip code, census tract number, city, etc. The data are (mostly, I think) from 2000, so it’s a little out of date. Hopefully sufficient for what you need. Happy hunting. [/QUOTE] That’s the data I’m looking for, but is it compiled anywhere? I can’t possibly go through each and every municipality and collect the data one-by-one. Ideally, I’d be able to simply generate a chart that looks like this, [BellCurve.gif](http://www.bigcarrot.com/misc/BellCurve.gif), and see where the numbers fell at every point of the graph. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/7 "2008-01-02T18:56:16Z")
Not asking for much, are we? As it happens, you _can_ get that from [census.gov](http://census.gov). 1. Go to [Factfinder](http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en) at [census.gov](http://census.gov). 2. Click on [“Download Center”](http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DownloadDatasetServlet?_lang=en) from the list on the left. 3. Choose the data set [“Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data”](http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DCGeoSelectServlet?ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U) (third one down) 4. Select the Geographic Level you want (I think you want “All Places” under “National Level”–fourth one down–but here’s where you’ll have to experiment. “All Places” is approximately 25,000 basic geographic units.) 5. Click “Go” 6. You should see a pick list of tables in a scroll box. The one you want is about halfway down: “H30: Units in Structure”. Click on it and click “Add” 7. You may also want one of the tables around H30: H31 or H32 or H33, which deal with vacant housing, tenure, and total population. If you do, add those, too. Heck, add whatever you want. The final download will be an aggregate file of all the data. (I downloaded H30 and H33; the file was 1.5meg) 8. Click “Next.” You’ll be directed to a Download page. Click “Start Download” to get the data. 9. The data are downloaded in a zip file containing three .txt files. You want the one that says “data1”. 10. You can, if you wish, open the file with Excel. The data are pipe delimited, so indicate that in the appropriate box when opening.’ And voila! Sort and graph to your heart’s content. ---
**Author:** ![\_Jake\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/439d5e/32.png) [@\_Jake\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Jake_1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/8 "2008-01-02T19:33:35Z")
[QUOTE=zut] Not asking for much, are we? … And voila! Sort and graph to your heart’s content. [/QUOTE] Wow! Wow! Wow! Thank you so much. ---
**Author:** ![\_Jake\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/439d5e/32.png) [@\_Jake\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Jake_1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/9 "2008-01-02T19:35:25Z")
What’s the difference between “Housing units: 1; detached units in structure” and “Housing units: 1; attached units in structure” ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/10 "2008-01-02T20:03:33Z")
I assume the “attached units” are townhouses/brownstones, while the “detatched units” are homes with actual space in between them. I’m not positive about this, but look at the large number of “attached units” in Philadelphia and NYC, where brownstones are popular. ---
**Author:** ![\_Jake\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/439d5e/32.png) [@\_Jake\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Jake_1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-data-on-number-of-single-family-homes-by-municipality/431989/11 "2008-01-02T23:04:22Z")
That makes sense. Thank you again. You were enormously helpful.