Methods: Data Acquisition and Preprocessing

Data Acquisition

The raw data used in this report are all publicly available from sources described below. These raw data are also available on the Protect the Adirondacks website.

We obtained U.S. Census data for five decennial census projects from 1970 to 2020. Prior to 2020, we purchased these data from a census broker who organizes census data for research. For this edition, we obtained 2000–2020 data directly from the U.S. Census. We acquired census data for New York at the municipality level (town, borough, city, reservation, etc.) and for the U.S. at the county (parish, etc.) level for all of the economic and population data discussed below. The U.S. Census economic data after the year 2000 became part of their American Community Survey (ACS) project. These are available as 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year samples. To ensure stable 2020 measures (even for census areas as small as 600 to 3000 persons), we purchased the ACS 5-year data comprising samples from 2018 through 2022.

We obtained USDA Rural-Urban Continuum Codes of all U.S. counties, parishes, etc., from the U.S. Department of Agriculture website. We obtained the most common U.S. Bureuau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index time series, the CPI-U deflator time series data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

Through Freedom of Information requests to New York State, we obtained prison populations for four institutions inside the Adirondack Park: Adirondack in North Elba, Clinton in Dannemora, Moriah Shock in Moriah, and Camp Gabriels in Brighton. Similarly, we obtained federal prison populations for the Federal Correctional Institution at Ray Brook in North Elba.

Through Freedom of Information requests, we obtained from the NYS Office of the State Comptroller the total taxable assessments of towns, cities, and boroughs across New York for 1982 and 2020. We used the years 1982 to 2020 because the Comptroller’s Office stated these were reliable data and earlier data were unavailable.

Through Freedom of Information requests, we obtained from the NYS Department of Education the school district enrollment for 1970 and 2020

Preprocessing Steps

Prior to 1990, population count anomalies existed in the U.S. Census age range data. For any given census area, the sum of the populations of all of the age ranges did not precisely match the published total population for that census area. This discrepancy was generally small, but we needed to correct it prior to our analysis. Thus, for each census area, we prorated each age range population value to ensure that the age range population totals matched published population totals.

Each U.S. Census has changed to reflect a few merged-together or split-apart census areas. These changes resulted in slightly varying total number of census areas from one analysis to the next. Throughout this report, when we referred to the U.S., we were excluding Puerto Rico, Alaska, and Hawaii. When we referred to New York, we were excluding Indian Reservations.

In 2010, there were 4,580 inmates in Adirondack prisons (and 5,378 in 2000 or 5.0% of the Park Towns population). The total Park Towns prison population has been an anomalously large 4.4% of the total Park Towns population, whereas across the U.S. the state and federal prison inmate population was 0.5% of the total population in 2010. Therefore, we subtracted the prison population data of each prison from its respective town’s population and age range population counts. Prior to this subtraction, we first needed to preprocess the prison population data as follows. Some prison population age range categories used by the prisons did not precisely match the age ranges used by the U.S. Census. Therefore, we prorated those mismatched prison age range populations to match the U.S. Census age range categories. While total prison population was available, prison age range population counts were not available for the earliest census. Therefore, we back-projected those age distributions.

For inflation correction of both incomes and real property taxable assessments, we multiplied dollar amounts by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U deflator time series.