R help - Jan 2008 - Any tools for working with US 2000 census data?

I've been given the job of extracting some data from the United States
2000 census (files at
http://www2.census.gov/census_2000/datasets/Summary_File_2/Maryland/all_
Maryland.zip 52M). I'm only interested in Census Block Groups (CBGs)
located within Baltimore City, Maryland. Additionally, I just have to
extract certain data fields. I think I'll be using Summary File 2. This
is my first experience working with US census data.

I wasn't successful finding anything using RSiteSearch, although there
were some packages with data extracted from the US 2000 census.

Are there any pre-constructed tools in R for working with this data?
Does the US 2000 census data itself come packaged in R? If there are no
R tools, I'd welcome any suggestions on working with this data from
anyone experienced with it.

Thanks for your advice and suggestions for me.

-Kevin 

Kevin Zembower
Internet Services Group manager
Center for Communication Programs
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
111 Market Place, Suite 310
Baltimore, Maryland  21202
410-659-6139

On Thursday 17 January 2008 10:55:03 am Zembower, Kevin
wrote:
> I've been given the job of extracting some data from the United States
> 2000 census (files at
> http://www2.census.gov/census_2000/datasets/Summary_File_2/Maryland/all_
> Maryland.zip 52M). I'm only interested in Census Block Groups (CBGs)
> located within Baltimore City, Maryland. Additionally, I just have to
> extract certain data fields. I think I'll be using Summary File 2. This
> is my first experience working with US census data.
>
> I wasn't successful finding anything using RSiteSearch, although there
> were some packages with data extracted from the US 2000 census.
>
> Are there any pre-constructed tools in R for working with this data?
> Does the US 2000 census data itself come packaged in R? If there are no
> R tools, I'd welcome any suggestions on working with this data from
> anyone experienced with it.
>
> Thanks for your advice and suggestions for me.
>
> -Kevin
>

Have a look at the PostGIS and GeoServer projects. I recall that there is an 
excellent tutorial on making sense of the TIGER data with PostGIS.

Cheers,


-- 
Dylan Beaudette
Soil Resource Laboratory
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341