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Welcome to GreatData!
In this video, we want to introduce you to our unique, Rural, Urban and Suburban ZIP Code product,
plus we want to demonstrate the significant improvements that we’ve recently made to it.
First, a little background: a few years ago, we had clients inquiring about this data,
so we did some research and found that nobody, including the government, was determining rural, urban and suburban areas for the U.S.
Next we found that nobody had clearly defined what constituted Rural, Urban or Suburban, so we knew that we would have to create our own.
This was a major undertaking for us.
We tried multiple scenarios to define this and went back and forth. Finally we released our product in 2007, based on the 2000 Census data.
We’ve had hospitals, universities, researchers and a wide variety of clients using this product.
We wanted to make the product even better than it was, and we started getting requests for a new version based on the 2010 Census data,
so when that data was released at the ZIP Code level, we started compiling it.
We also wanted another official source of data besides the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau defines Rural and Urban areas,
but they didn’t have a Suburban category and because of that, we disagreed with some of their findings.
We looked at multiple sources and determined that the USDA would be the best source to define what’s truly rural and what isn’t.
We called different offices and found out that they actually go out street by street and map areas to determine whether they are rural or not.
This is crucial for them since it determines who qualifies – and who doesn’t – for billions of dollars in rural aid.
Getting data from them was very difficult, to say the least, but we eventually receive a map from them that would help us out.
With current Census counts and USDA data, we did a total overhaul of our logic and have come up with a far superior product!
We now have the ability to map this data as well, which is what you’re seeing on your screen.
In this map, we’ve included total population and population density which isn’t released with the current product,
but is used by us to determine if an area is Rural, Urban or Suburban.
We have included it here so that you can better understand the logic behind our decision-making process. So let’s take a look …
First, we’ll zoom into the Boston area ...
Depending on your Internet speed and a few other factors, this may take a while, since this is all cloud based.
Now that we're zoomed in, we'll define what you're looking at: the blue areas are urban areas, orange suburban and green rural.
You might think that these two orange areas would also be blue (urban), since this is blue down here.
When you look at it, (this is Brockton, MA) the population density is almost 5,000 people per square mile.
These two ZIP Codes comprise Brockton, but if you look at these two ZIPs, there's 1,500 and 1,015 people per square mile (less dense).
And Brockton falls in our Urban category. Combined, Brockton is 61,000 population in this ZIP Code and 32,000 in this ZIP Code.
There's over 90,000 people, so it's clearly an Urban area.
You may also think it strange that you could have a rural area outside of an Urban area, but when you look at the population density and total population,
you realize that this is Rural, and that's how the USDA defines it: West Bridgewater is a rural area.
You may be wondering, ‘What are these dots?’ They are what we refer to as ‘Point ZIPS.’ They are ZIP Codes with no deliverable addresses,
so they don’t have a boundary. They may be exclusively used for PO Boxes (‘e’ type codes)
or ZIP Codes used by a large business or government agency which have a ‘b’ type code.
The ZIP Code, 02305 is a type code of 'e'. That means it's a PO Box.
It has no general delivery area, so it's just one point on the map.
In the previous version of our product, we didn’t include point ZIPs but this version does because people get mail there.
So now these point ZIPs will be coded as Rural, Urban or Suburban as well.
Also, in the Boston area, ZIP Code 02201 is coded as a 'b', so it's for a private business or government organization.
We also now include Puerto Rico and the U.S. *** Islands. We don’t include military ZIPs, and South Pacific territories like Guam.
Knowing whether a ZIP Code is Rural, Urban or Suburban can be very useful. It can help you in your marketing efforts. It’s also used by the government
such as in reimbursing ambulance companies in rural areas, since it’s usually a much longer ride.
It’s used by Medicare (they reimburse a bit more to those areas that are rural). By the way, we have a separate Medicare CBSA Codes product.
We also have a Canadian Metropolitan Area Codes product that can be used to define Rural, Urban and Suburban postal codes.
Thanks for watching! Feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have by going to GreatData.com.