How do communities plan for the future? One way is through comprehensive plans.  These plans provide a roadmap or guide for charting the future and are used by communities to inform local decision making around current and future needs.  Some examples of decisions informed by comprehensive plans include housing, economic development, services, and schools.  Comprehensive plans contain many elements, including detailed data on the socio-economic characteristics of the community.

In April, 2022 I was contacted by a resident in Meade County, Kentucky to help in updating the data used in their comprehensive plan.  Building off of their previous plan, I identified, updated and compiled data from 16 different tables.  Multiple sources were needed for the data.  These included the 2020 Census, the 2021 Population Estimates, and the 2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates produced by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Data were also obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from both the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.  For many of the tables, data were needed not just for Meade county, but included surrounding counties and/or counties in Meade County’s labor market area – which includes two counties in Indiana.  For several tables, longitudinal annual data were also needed covering the last decade.   In the end, I compiled and provided data on 59 different variables resulting in 550 different data points to be used in the updating the Meade County comprehensive plan.