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 the boundaries of the areas are suitable for depiction on maps. It also must provide the statistics and maps within the schedule data users expect. These technical considerations have provided part of the impetus for the Census Bureau’s development of automated geographic reference files, address reference files, and digital boundary files. The Census Bureau began developing these files for the 1963 economic censuses, improved and expanded them for subsequent economic and decennial censuses, and increasingly will rely on automated geographic and cartographic processing resources that will provide these linkages as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Budgetary considerations are an important factor in the Census Bureau’s ability to provide data. The Census Bureau must select the best overall approach within its available budget, modify its plans as the budget review and approval process changes the level of available funding, and evaluate its ability to deliver the data. The feasibility of implementing programs to tabulate data for new kinds of geographic entities depends, in part, on the ease with which the Census Bureau can integrate a new area into the existing geographic framework without unduly raising the cost of collecting, processing, and presenting the data, and of cartographically depicting the new area.

To ensure widespread acceptance of new geographic units, it is desirable that there should be a general consensus by various data users about the underlying conceptual issues. Data users also expect the Census Bureau to define its geographic entities precisely, and for such definitions to meet the needs for data comparability over time (comparability of geographic areas from one census to the next often is a major concern of data users). Accordingly, the Census Bureau proceeds with caution in establishing new geographic area definitions because, once adopted, the entities rapidly become etched into the policies and programs of other agencies. They also quickly become additions to the set of tools that researchers use to review, analyze, and portray the Nation. Consequently, the Census Bureau only tabulates data for entities whose definitions are generally accepted by most data users. Geographic Overview2-15