17326 Federal Register / Vol. 72, No. 66 / Friday, April 6, 2007 / Notices 

1The term CDP includes communidades and 

zonas urbanas in Puerto Rico. 

authority. Along with reservations, 

designations such as colonies, 

communities, pueblos, rancherias, and 

reserves apply to American Indian 

reservations. 

Block Group—A statistical 

subdivision of a census tract consisting 

of all census blocks whose numbers 

begin with the same digit in a census 

tract. 

Census block—A geographic area 

bounded by visible and/or invisible 

features in the Census Bureau’s 

Topographically Integrated Geographic 

Encoding and Referencing system, and 

shown on maps prepared by the Census 

Bureau. A block is the smallest 

geographic entity for which the Census 

Bureau tabulates decennial census data. 

Census designated place—A statistical 

geographic entity with a concentration 

of population, housing, and commercial 

structures that is identifiable by name, 

but is not within an incorporated place. 

Census tract—A small, relatively 

permanent statistical geographic 

division of a county defined for the 

tabulation and publication of Census 

Bureau data. The primary goal of the 

census tract program is to provide a set 

of nationally consistent small, statistical 

geographic units, with stable 

boundaries, that facilitate analysis of 

data across time. 

Conjoint—A description of a 

boundary shared by two adjacent 

geographic areas. 

Contiguous—A description of 

geographic areas that are adjacent to one 

another, sharing either a common 

boundary or point. 

Federally managed land—Territory 

that is federally owned and 

administered by an agency of the U.S. 

federal government, such as the 

National Park Service, Bureau of Land 

Management, or Department of Defense. 

Incorporated place—A type of 

governmental unit, incorporated under 

state law as a city, town (except in New 

England, New York, and Wisconsin), 

borough (except in Alaska and New 

York), or village, generally to provide 

specific governmental services for a 

concentration of people within legally 

prescribed boundaries. 

Minor civil division—The primary 

governmental or administrative division 

of a county in 28 states, Puerto Rico, 

and the Island Areas having legal 

boundaries, names, and descriptions. 

MCDs represent many different types of 

legal entities with a wide variety of 

characteristics, powers, and functions 

depending on the state and type of 

MCD. In some states, some or all of the 

incorporated places also constitute 

MCDs. 

Nonvisible feature—A map feature 

that is not visible on the ground, such 

as a city or county boundary through 

space, a property line running through 

space, a short line-of-sight extension of 

a road, or a point-to-point line of sight. 

Visible feature—A map feature that 

can be seen on the ground, such as a 

road, railroad track, major above-ground 

transmission line or pipeline, stream, 

shoreline, fence, sharply defined 

mountain ridge, or cliff. A nonstandard 

visible feature is a feature that may not 

be clearly defined on the ground (such 

as a ridge), may be seasonal (such as an 

intermittent stream), or may be 

relatively impermanent (such as a 

fence). The Census Bureau generally 

requests verification that nonstandard 

features pose no problem in their 

location during fieldwork. 

Executive Order 12866 

This notice has been determined to be 

not significant under Executive Order 

12866. 

Paperwork Reduction Act 

This program notice does not 

represent a collection of information 

subject to the requirements of the 

Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 

Chapter 35. 

Dated: April 3, 2007. 

Charles Louis Kincannon, 

Director, Bureau of the Census. 

[FR Doc. E7–6464 Filed 4–5–07; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–07–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Bureau of the Census 

[Docket Number 070104002–7003–01] 

Census Designated Place (CDP) 

Program for the 2010 Census—

Proposed Criteria 

AGENCY: Bureau of the Census, 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of proposed program and 

request for comments. 

SUMMARY: Census designated places 

(CDPs) 1 are statistical geographic 

entities representing closely settled, 

unincorporated communities that are 

locally recognized and identified by 

name. They are the statistical 

equivalents of incorporated places, with 

the primary differences being the lack of 

both a legally defined boundary and an 

active, functioning governmental 

structure, chartered by the state and 

administered by elected officials. CDPs 

defined for the 2010 Census also will be 

used to tabulate American Community 

Survey, Puerto Rico Community Survey, 

and Economic Census data after 2010, 

and potentially data from other Bureau 

of the Census (Census Bureau) censuses 

and surveys. 

The Census Bureau is publishing this 

notice in the Federal Register to request 

comments from the public and other 

government agencies. The Census 

Bureau will respond to the comments 

received as part of the publication of 

final criteria in the Federal Register. 

After the final criteria are published in 

the Federal Register, the Census Bureau 

will offer designated governments or 

organizations an opportunity to review 

and, if necessary, suggest updates to the 

boundaries and attributes of the CDPs in 

their geographic area under the 

Participant Statistical Areas Program 

(PSAP). In addition to CDPs, the 

program also encompasses the review 

and update of census tracts, block 

groups, and census county divisions. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted on or before July 5, 2007. 

ADDRESSES: Please direct all written 

comments on this proposed program to 

the Director, U.S. Census Bureau, Room 

8H001, mail stop 0100, Washington, DC 

20233–0001. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Requests for additional information on 

this proposed program should be 

directed to Michael Ratcliffe, Chief, 

Geographic Standards and Criteria 

Branch, Geography Division, U.S. 

Census Bureau, via e-mail at 

geo.psap.list@census.gov or telephone at 

301–763–3056. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. History 

The CDP concept and delineation 

criteria have evolved over the past five 

decades in response to data user needs 

for place-level data. This evolution has 

taken into account differences in the 

way in which places were perceived, 

and the propensity for places to 

incorporate in various states. The result, 

over time, has been an increase in the 

number and types of unincorporated 

communities identified as CDPs, as well 

as increasing consistency in the 

relationship between the CDP concept 

and the kinds of places encompassed by 

the incorporated place category, or a 

compromise between localized 

perceptions of place and a concept that 

would be familiar to data users 

throughout the United States, Puerto 

Rico, and the Island Areas. 


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2 Known by various terms throughout the United 

States: cities, towns (except in the six New England 

States, New York, and Wisconsin), villages, and 

boroughs (except in New York and Alaska). 

3For Census Bureau purposes, the United States 

includes the fifty states and the District of 

Columbia. 

4For Census Bureau purposes, the Island Areas 

includes the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, 

the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana 

Islands, and Guam. There are no CDPs in American 

Samoa because villages cover its entire territory and 

population. 

Although not as numerous as 

incorporated places or municipalities,2

CDPs have been important geographic 

entities since their introduction for the 

1950 census. (CDPs were referred to as 

‘‘unincorporated places’’ from 1950 

through the 1970 decennial censuses.) 

For the 1950 Census, CDPs were defined 

only outside urbanized areas and were 

required to have at least 1,000 residents. 

For the 1960 Census, CDPs could also be 

identified inside urbanized areas 

outside of New England, but these were 

required to have at least 10,000 

residents. The Census Bureau modified 

the population threshold within 

urbanized areas to 5,000 in 1970, 

allowed for CDPs in urbanized areas in 

New England in 1980, and lowered the 

urbanized area threshold again to 2,500 

in 1990. In time, other population 

thresholds were adopted for 

identification of CDPs in Alaska, as well 

as in Puerto Rico, the Island Areas, and 

on American Indian reservations. The 

Census Bureau eliminated all 

population threshold requirements for 

Census 2000, achieving consistency 

between CDPs and incorporated places, 

for which the Census Bureau 

historically has published data without 

regard to population size. 

According to Census 2000, more than 

35 million people in the United States 3, 

Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas 4 lived 

in CDPs. The relative importance of 

CDPs varies from state to state 

depending on laws governing municipal 

incorporation and annexation, but also 

depending on local preferences and 

attitudes regarding the identification of 

places. 

II. Census Designated Place Criteria 

and Characteristics for the 2010 Census 

The criteria proposed herein apply to 

the United States, including American 

Indian reservations and off-reservation 

trust lands, Puerto Rico, and the Island 

Areas. In accordance with the final 

criteria, the Census Bureau may modify 

and, if necessary, reject any proposals 

for CDPs that do not meet the 

established criteria. In addition, the 

Census Bureau reserves the right to 

modify the boundaries and attributes of 

CDPs as needed to maintain geographic 

relationships before the final tabulation 

geography is set for the 2010 Census. 

The Census Bureau proposes the 

following criteria and characteristics for 

use in identifying the areas that will 

qualify for designation as CDPs for use 

in tabulating data from the 2010 Census, 

the American Community Survey, the 

Puerto Rico Community Survey, the 

Economic Census, and potentially other 

Census Bureau censuses and surveys. 

1. A CDP constitutes a single, closely 

settled center of population that is 

named; to the extent possible, 

individual unincorporated communities 

should be identified as separate CDPs. 

Similarly, a single community should be 

defined as a single CDP as opposed to 

multiple CDPs with each part 

referencing the community name and a 

directional term (i.e., north, south, east, 

or west). Since a CDP is defined to 

provide data for a single, named 

locality, the Census Bureau generally 

will not accept combinations of places 

and hyphenated place names defined as 

a CDP. For example, CDPs such as 

Poplar-Cotton Center and DownievilleLawson-Dumont are no longer 

acceptable. Combinations of places 

often were defined as a single CDP in 

order to comply with the Census 

Bureau’s minimum population 

requirements. The Census Bureau’s 

elimination of population threshold 

criteria has made such combinations 

unnecessary. Others were combined 

because visible features were not 

available for use as boundaries for 

separate CDPs. The Census Bureau is 

proposing use of some nonvisible 

boundaries so that participants can 

separate individual communities and 

dispense with multi-place CDPs. 

2. A CDP generally consists of a 

contiguous cluster of census blocks 

comprising a single piece of territory 

and containing a mix of residential and 

commercial uses similar to that of an 

incorporated place of similar size. Some 

CDPs, however, may be predominantly 

residential; such places should 

represent recognizably distinct, locally 

known communities, but not typical 

suburban subdivisions. Examples of 

such predominantly residential 

communities that can be recognized as 

CDPs are colonias found along the U.S.- 

Mexico border, small rural 

communities, and unincorporated resort 

and retirement communities. 

3. A CDP may not be located, either 

partially or entirely, within an 

incorporated place or another CDP. 

4. A CDP may not be coextensive with 

the boundaries of one or more 

governmentally functioning Minor Civil 

Divisions (MCDs) in the six New 

England states, Michigan, Minnesota, 

New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, 

and Wisconsin, nor may it encompass 

the entirety of one town or township 

and contain portions of adjacent towns 

or townships. 

This criterion is proposed for the first 

time for the 2010 Census in order to 

eliminate redundancy in tabular 

presentations of data published by the 

Census Bureau for towns/townships and 

places. For instance, because geographic 

comparison tables and inventory tables 

providing data for places also contain 

data for MCDs within these twelve 

states, redundancy occurs wherever a 

CDP is coextensive with an MCD. For 

example, in place-level tables for 

Massachusetts, data are published for 

both Framingham town and 

Framingham CDP, the latter covering 

the same population and territory as the 

former. In adopting this criterion, the 

Census Bureau will explore ways to 

enhance the presentation and visibility 

of data for MCDs in these twelve states, 

to make it clearer that many of the 

MCDs in these states are seen as similar 

to places in other parts of the United 

States. 

5. A CDP may be located in more than 

one county but must not cross state 

boundaries. It is important to note, 

however, that since county boundaries 

provide important demarcations for 

communities, CDPs that cross county 

lines should be kept to a minimum and 

identified only when the community 

clearly sees itself existing on both sides 

of a county boundary. 

6. There are no minimum population 

or housing unit thresholds for defining 

CDPs; however a CDP must contain 

some population or housing units or 

both. The Census Bureau eliminated 

minimum population thresholds for 

CDPs for Census 2000, enabling the 

identification and tabulation of data for 

small, unincorporated communities, 

particularly in rural areas, as CDPs. Six 

CDPs identified for Census 2000, 

however, lacked any population and 

housing; three CDPs had some 

population, but no housing units; and 

an additional 23 CDPs contained less 

than ten housing units. The Census 

Bureau recognizes that some 

communities, such as resort or other 

kinds of seasonal communities, may 

lack population at certain times of the 

year. Nevertheless, there should be 

some evidence, generally in the form of 

houses, barracks, dormitories, 

commercial buildings and/or other 

structures, providing the basis for local 

perception of the place’s existence. For 

the 2010 Census, the Census Bureau 

will not accept a CDP delineated with 

zero population and zero housing units. 

The Census Bureau will review the 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with NOTICES2
17328 Federal Register / Vol. 72, No. 66 / Friday, April 6, 2007 / Notices 

number of housing units within the 

place, as reported in the previous 

decennial census, and consider whether 

additional information is needed before 

recognizing the CDP. Participants 

submitting boundaries for places with 

less than 10 housing units may be asked 

to provide additional information 

attesting to the existence of the CDP. 

7. CDP boundaries should follow 

visible features, except in those 

circumstances when a CDP’s boundary 

is coincident with the nonvisible 

boundary of a state, county, MCD (in the 

six New England states, Michigan, 

Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, 

Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), or 

incorporated place. In selected 

circumstances, CDP boundaries can 

follow other nonvisible features. 

Reliance upon visible features 

sometimes has resulted in overbounding 

of the CDP in order to include housing 

units on both sides of a road or street 

feature. While this has helped ensure 

accurate allocation of housing units to 

the place, it also has meant that 

territory, population, and housing not 

associated with the place have been 

included in the CDP. For the 2010 

Census, advances and enhancements in 

the positional accuracy of housing units 

within the Census Bureau’s geographic 

databases make it possible to consider 

the potential use of nonvisible 

boundaries when defining CDPs. Such 

boundaries might include parcel 

boundaries and public land survey 

system (PLSS) lines; fencelines; 

national, state, or local park boundaries; 

ridgelines; or drainage ditches. 

8. The CDP name should be one that 

is recognized and used in daily 

communication by the residents of the 

community. Because unincorporated 

communities lack legally-defined 

boundaries, a commonly used 

community name and the geographic 

extent of its use by local residents is 

often the best identifier of the extent of 

a place, the assumption being that if 

residents associate with a particular 

name and use it to identify the place in 

which they live, then the CDP’s 

boundaries can be mapped based on the 

use of the name. There should be 

features in the landscape that use the 

name, such that a non-resident would 

have a general sense of the location or 

extent of the community; for example, 

signs indicating when one is entering 

the community; highway exit signs that 

use the name; businesses, schools, or 

other buildings that make use of the 

name. It should not be a name 

developed solely for planning or other 

purposes (including simply to obtain 

data from the Census Bureau) that is not 

in regular daily use by the local 

residents and business establishments. 

9. A CDP may not have the same 

name as an adjacent or nearby 

incorporated place. The assumption 

behind this criterion is that if the 

community does not have a name that 

distinguishes it from other nearby 

communities, it probably is not a 

distinct place. Use of directional terms 

(‘‘north,’’ ‘‘south,’’ ‘‘east,’’ ‘‘west,’’ and 

so forth) to merely differentiate the 

name of a CDP from a nearby 

municipality where this name is not in 

local use is not acceptable. For example, 

‘‘North Laurel’’ would be permitted as a 

name if this name were in local use. A 

name such as ‘‘Laurel North’’ would not 

be permitted if it were not in local use. 

Again, this has much to do with the way 

in which people typically refer to the 

places in which they live. It is 

permissible to change the name of a 

2000 CDP for the 2010 Census if the 

new name provides a better 

identification of the community. 

III. Definitions of Key Terms 

Alaska Native regional corporation 

(ANRC)—A corporate geographic area 

established under the Alaska Native 

Claims Settlement Act (Pub. L. 92–203), 

to conduct both the business and 

nonprofit affairs of Alaska Natives. 

Twelve ANRCs cover the State of Alaska 

except for the Annette Island Reserve. 

American Indian reservation (AIR)—A 

federally recognized American Indian 

land area with boundaries established 

by final treaty, statute, executive order, 

and/or court order, and over which a 

federally recognized American Indian 

tribal government has governmental 

authority. Along with reservations, 

designations such as colonies, 

communities, pueblos, rancherias, and 

reserves apply to AIRs. 

Census block—A geographic area 

bounded by visible and/or invisible 

features shown on a map prepared by 

the U.S. Census Bureau. A block is the 

smallest geographic entity for which the 

Census Bureau tabulates decennial 

census data. 

Coextensive—Descriptive of two or 

more geographic entities that cover 

exactly the same area, with all 

boundaries shared. 

Comunidad—A census designated 

place in Puerto Rico that is not related 

to a municipio’s seat of government; 

called an aldea or a ciudad prior to the 

1990 census. 

Contiguous—Descriptive of 

geographic areas that are adjacent to one 

another, sharing either a common 

boundary or point of contact. 

Housing unit—A house, an apartment, 

a mobile home or trailer, or a group of 

rooms or a single room occupied as a 

separate living quarter or, if vacant, 

intended for occupancy as a separate 

living quarter. Separate living quarters 

are those in which the occupants live 

and eat separately from any other 

residents of the building and which 

have direct access from outside the 

building or through a common hall. 

Incorporated place—A type of 

governmental unit, incorporated under 

state law as a city, town (except in New 

England, New York, and Wisconsin), 

borough (except in Alaska and New 

York), or village, generally to provide 

governmental services for a 

concentration of people within legally 

prescribed boundaries. 

Island areas—An entity, other than a 

state or the District of Columbia, under 

the jurisdiction of the United States. For 

the 2010 Census, these will include 

American Samoa, Guam, the 

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana 

Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 

several small islands in the Caribbean 

Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Census 

Bureau treats each Island Territory as 

the statistical equivalent of a state. 

Minor civil division—The primary 

governmental or administrative division 

of a county in 28 states, Puerto Rico, 

and the Island Areas having legal 

boundaries, names, and descriptions. 

MCDs represent many different types of 

legal entities with a wide variety of 

characteristics, powers, and functions 

depending on the state and type of 

MCD. In some states, some or all of the 

incorporated places also constitute 

MCDs. 

Municipio—A type of governmental 

unit that is the primary legal 

subdivision of Puerto Rico. The Census 

Bureau treats the municipio as the 

statistical equivalent of a county. 

Nonvisible feature—A map feature 

that is not visible, such as a city or 

county boundary, a property line 

running through space, a short 

imaginary extension of a street or road, 

or a point-to-point line. 

Statistical geographic entity—A 

geographic entity that is specially 

defined and delineated, such as block 

group, CDP, or census tract, so that the 

Census Bureau may tabulate data for it. 

Designation as a statistical entity neither 

conveys nor confers legal ownership, 

entitlement, or jurisdictional authority. 

Urbanized area (UA)—An area 

consisting of a central place(s) and 

adjacent urban fringe that together have 

a minimum residential population of at 

least 50,000 people and generally an 

overall population density of at least 

1,000 people per square mile. The 

Census Bureau uses published criteria 

to determine the qualification and 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with NOTICES2
Federal Register / Vol. 72, No. 66 / Friday, April 6, 2007 / Notices 17329 

1 Includes parishes in Louisiana; boroughs, city 

and boroughs, census areas, and municipalities in 

Alaska; independent cities in Maryland, Missouri, 

Nevada, and Virginia; districts in American Samoa 

and the U.S. Virgin Islands; municipalities in the 

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; 

municipios in Puerto Rico; the areas constituting 

the District of Columbia and Guam. This notice will 

refer to all these entities collectively as ‘‘counties.’’

2The ACS is conducted in the United States and 

in Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico the survey is called 

the Puerto Rico Community Survey (PRCS). For 

ease of discussion, throughout this document the 

term ACS is used to represent the surveys 

conducted in the United States and in Puerto Rico. 

3For Census Bureau purposes, the United States 

includes the fifty States and the District of 

Columbia. 

4The proposed criteria for the tribal statistical 

areas program will be outlined in a separate Federal 

Register notice. In the tribal statistical areas 

program, federally recognized American Indian 

tribes that have a reservation and/or off-reservation 

trust land may delineate census designated places 

(CDPs), and, if these areas have a population of 

2,400 or greater, may delineate tribal tracts and 

tribal block groups for their reservation and offreservation trust land. 

5For Census Bureau purposes, the Island Areas 

includes American Samoa, the Commonwealth of 

the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the U.S. 

Virgin Islands, and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. 

The U.S. Minor Outlying Islands is an aggregation 

of nine U.S. territories: Baker Island, Howland 

Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, 

Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Palmyra Atoll, and 

Wake Island. 

boundaries of UAs at the time of each 

decennial census or from the results of 

a special census during the intercensal 

period. 

Visible feature—A map feature that 

can be seen on the ground such as a 

road, railroad track, major above-ground 

transmission line or pipeline, stream, 

shoreline, fence, sharply defined 

mountain ridge, or cliff. A nonstandard 

visible feature is a feature that may not 

be clearly defined on the ground (such 

as a ridge), may be seasonal (such as an 

intermittent stream), or may be 

relatively impermanent (such as a 

fence). The Census Bureau generally 

requests verification that nonstandard 

features pose no problem in their 

location during field work. 

Zona urbana—In Puerto Rico, the 

settled area functioning as the seat of 

government for a municipio. A zona 

urbana cannot cross a municipio 

boundary. 

Executive Order 12866 

This notice has been determined to be 

not significant under Executive Order 

12866. 

Paperwork Reduction Act 

This program notice does not 

represent a collection of information 

subject to the requirements of the 

Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 

Chapter 35. 

Dated: April 3, 2007. 

Charles Louis Kincannon, 

Director, Bureau of the Census. 

[FR Doc. E7–6465 Filed 4–5–07; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–07–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Bureau of the Census 

[Docket Number 070321065–7066–01] 

Census Tract Program for the 2010 

Census—Proposed Criteria 

AGENCY: Bureau of the Census, 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of proposed program 

revisions and request for comments. 

SUMMARY: Census tracts are relatively 

permanent small-area geographic 

divisions of a county or statistically 

equivalent entity 1 defined for the 

tabulation of decennial census data and 

selected other statistical programs. 

Census tracts also will be used to 

tabulate and publish estimates from the 

American Community Survey (ACS) 2

after 2010. The primary goal of the 

census tract program is to provide a set 

of nationally consistent small, statistical 

geographic units, with stable 

boundaries, that facilitate analysis of 

data across time. 

Most provisions of the census tract 

criteria for the 2010 Census remain 

unchanged from those used in 

conjunction with Census 2000. 

However, based on consultation with 

data users and internal review the 

Bureau of the Census (Census Bureau) is 

proposing the following changes for the 

2010 Census: (1) Lowering the 

minimum population threshold for 

census tracts; (2) using housing unit 

counts (as an alternative to population 

counts) in the review and update of 

tracts; (3) applying the same population 

and housing unit thresholds to all types 

of populated tracts within the United 

States,3 including census tracts 

delineated on American Indian 

reservations and off-reservation trust 

lands,4 Puerto Rico, the Island Areas,5

and encompassing group quarters, 

military installations, and institutions; 

(4) allowing the delineation of census 

tracts for large water bodies with areas 

of approximately 100 square miles or 

more and special land use (e.g., large 

airports or public parks) with an official 

name; and (5) allowing for geographic 

frameworks of tribal tracts (separate 

from the standard census tracts defined 

within counties) to be defined within 

federally-recognized American Indian 

reservations and off-reservation trust 

lands. 

In addition to proposed criteria, this 

notice includes a description of the 

changes from the criteria used for 

Census 2000 and a list of definitions of 

key terms used in the criteria. 

The Census Bureau is publishing this 

notice in the Federal Register to request 

comments from the public and other 

government agencies. The Census 

Bureau will respond to the comments 

received as part of the publication of 

final criteria in the Federal Register. 

After the final criteria are published in 

the Federal Register, the Census Bureau 

will offer designated governments or 

organizations an opportunity to review 

and, if necessary, suggest updates to the 

boundaries and attributes (e.g., tract 

code) of the census tracts in their 

geographic area under the Participant 

Statistical Areas Program (PSAP). In 

addition to census tracts, the program 

also encompasses the review and update 

of block groups, census designated 

places, and census county divisions. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted on or before July 5, 2007. 

ADDRESSES: Please direct all written 

comments on this proposed program to 

the Director, U.S. Census Bureau, Room 

8H001, mail stop 0100, Washington, DC 

20233–0001. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Requests for additional information on 

this proposed program should be 

directed to Michael Ratcliffe, Chief, 

Geographic Standards and Criteria 

Branch, Geography Division, U.S. 

Census Bureau, via e-mail at 

geo.psap.list@census.gov or telephone at 

301–763–3056. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. History of Census Tracts 

In 1905, Dr. Walter Laidlaw originated 

the concept of permanent, small 

geographic areas as a framework for 

studying change from one decennial 

census to another in neighborhoods 

within New York City. For the 1910 

Census, eight cities—New York, 

Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, 

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. 

Louis—delineated census tracts (then 

termed ‘‘districts’’) for the first time. No 

additional jurisdictions delineated 

census tracts until just prior to the 1930 

Census, when an additional ten cities 

chose to do so. The increased interest in 

census tracts for the 1930 Census is 

attributed to the promotional efforts of 

Howard Whipple Green, who was a 

statistician in Cleveland, Ohio, and later 

the chairman of the American Statistical 

Association’s Committee on Census 

Enumeration Areas. For more than 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with NOTICES2