Data & Statistics - Urban Studies - Research Guide

Finding Censored or Defunct Web Pages and Data

Trying to locate government-produced health websites and health-related datasets that have been suppressed through government action can be frustrating. You know the web page or dataset existed, but you cannot find it. After you have found bad links elsewhere on this library guide, here are some suggestions for finding these older web pages and the datasets and grey literature that are linked from them.

Suppressed Websites (and Old Versions of Websites, too)

When a government administration changes - through elections, coup, or other disaster - government websites can change too. Web pages may vanish, sometimes replaced by new web pages. Web page URLs may stay the same, but the page content may be very different before and after an administration's turnover. Documents, spreadsheets, and other files linked from old web pages may be lost from the government record.

Wayback Machine / Internet Archive
A digital archive of the web, providing archived web pages starting in 1996. Websites are crawled for archiving. The archived versions of websites may not include a website's deepest tiers, and web pages with interactive content may not have working archived versions. The Wayback Machine includes Archive-It's public collections.
Archive-It.org / Internet Archive
Related to the Wayback Machine, this program offers support for institutions wishing to archive their own websites or a topical collection of websites. Archive-It may be easier to browse among organizations than the Wayback Machine, which works best by searching for a URL. Archive-It hosts the Federal Depository Library Program Web Archive / US Government Publishing Office.
The End-of-Term Web Archive
A partnership among the Internet Archive, academic institutions, and others (in early years, including US federal agencies) to archive a snapshot of US federal websites dating from before the end of a US Presidential administration.
Congressional & Federal Government Web Harvests / US National Archives & Recodes Administration
Collections with Web Archives / Library of Congress
Individual special collections of archived websites. While very well served for foreign elections, collections include a Coronavirus archive, and archives of US federal government and US state government websites.

Search Tips for Finding Old Websites

Paste a website URL you know into the Wayback Machine's search box. In the results, look for the blue or green colored archive events. (Blue links directly to an archived version. Green-color link to redirected URLs.).
If your initial website URL does not produce many old results, search for a parent website URL and drill down through the archived parent website. For example, Philadelphia's Division of Housing and Community Development is a new city agency, renamed and reorganized from the preceding Office of Housing and Community Development. To find the archived OHCD website, search the Wayback Machine for archived versions of https://www.phila.gov/, the City Government's website and then browse the list of city agencies : here are very different examples of archived OHCD websites, from November 14, 2018, from March 31, 2014, from August, 4, 2004, and from July 7, 2001.

Data Archives

These website generally archive static datasets that might require statistical software for analysis.

ICPSR Data Lumos
Requires PennKey login. The principal crowd-sourced repository for datasets produced by the US federal government.
Public Environmental Data Project
This website has archived versions of Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) environmental justice datasets and data visualizations.
Larger and Established Data and Website Efforts / Data Rescue Project
This web page lists projects like Data Lumos that are archiving US federal government datasets.

US Census

See guide, U.S. Census Data, for complete guide.

Social Explorer
Easy to access maps and tables from 1790-2010 census, plus American Community Survey through 2015. Downloadable in Excel, CSV, SPSS, SAS, and Stata file formats.
Data.census.gov (aka Explore Census Data)
The US Census Bureau's primary delivery platform - a free data site - for the American Community Survey, the most recent Decennial Census, and other Census Bureau data releases.
TIGER Products
Source for free shapefiles and KMLs of census boundaries, for use with GIS or Google Earth (KML)

Data on special topics

ICMA datasets
Microdata datasets for US national surveys of municipal governments conducted by the International City / County Management Association. Topics covered are: municipal form of government, economic development, alternative service delivery, government technology solutions, innovations and emerging practices in local government, immigrant communities, smart cities, sustainability in local government, and state of the profession.
Community Health Data Base - Penn Libraries data resources
Online data analysis tools and microdata datasets for the Southeast Pennsylvania Household Health Survey, the largest and longest-running metropolitan health survey in the US.
C2ER Regional Economic Data Toolkit
Includes:
• Cost of Living Index Calculator, covering cost of living indexes and prices for 76 goods and services in 250 U.S. cities, 1990 to the present.
• Diversity Index, using employment, demographic, and economic indicators to compare economic diversity across U.S. counties.
Foundation Maps
Map-based visualization of philanthropic funding flows.

Data & statistical sources

Proquest Statistical Insight
Index of statistical publications by federal, state, and local governments, as well as some trade associations and research centers. A good starting point for statistical information.
PolicyMap
Data relevant to U.S. federal, state, and local social policy and community planning presented in a mapping interface.

Municipal Year Book
Findings of studies of local governments collected by the International City/County Management Association, including statistics on police and fire personnel compensation.

SimplyAnalytics
Web-based mapping application that including a wide range of underlying data, including census, consumer expenditure and business counts. Datasets include Claritas PRIZM and Simmons Local.

City Crime Rankings
Derived from the FBI's UCR, this CQ Press publication ranks cities and metropolitan areas by total crime and Crime Index (Part I) offenses: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson. 1996-present.
County and City Data Books (1944-2000)
Interactive historic demographic, social, economic, and industry data on US cities, counties, and states. Produced from CCDB data files by University of Virginia Library.
U.S. Conference of Mayors
Reports and statistics on urban issues.
Homelessness Analytics
Data and maps on homelessness.
Urban Indicators Database / UN-HABITAT
Cross-national time series data from the United Nations Human Settlement Program. Tables may report on individual cities or on cities aggregated within the country.
OpenDataPhilly
"OpenDataPhilly is a catalog of open data in the Philadelphia region. In addition to being the official open data repository for the City, it includes data sets from many organizations in the region."

Urban Studies - Research Guide: Data & Statistics