Los Angeles County Union Census Tract Data Series, 1940-1990

Ethington, Kooistra and DeYoung, Los Angeles County Union Census Tract Data Series, 1940-1990 was created with the
support of a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. It is published and distributed by the
University of Southern California to facilitate a wide range of research on the development and condition of Los Angeles
County. Los Angeles County, the largest county in the United States, is of great interest to researchers from all disciplines of
the human and natural sciences. Until now, no uniform census data were available to chart the development of this important
metropolitan region through the period of its most important changes and critical decades. This data set is organized with the
goal of providing maximum uniformity and comparability across all census years and census geographies. It includes
aggregate data describing the characteristics of U.S. Census Tracts for race-ethnicity, occupation, education, housing, age
and median household income, house value, and rent. It was assembled from two principal sources: 1) the print-published
US Census tables for the years 1940, 1950 and 1960, and 2) the digitally distributed "Correspondence" data files created by
the California State Department of Finance for the years 1970, 1980, and 1990. All data have been proportionally aggregated
to fit the 1990 census tract geography. The boundary data are provided in ESRI's ArcView© shapefile format, and the
numeric data are provided in the standard dBase© spreadsheet data file format (.dbf).