HUD-USPS Census Tract Crosswalk

One of the many challenges that social science researchers and practitioners face is the difficulty of relating data between census tracts which are re-delineated with each decennial census. While some methods of harmonizing or crosswalking data between census tracts exist, to provide additional avenues for merging these data, PD&R has released the HUD-USPS Census Tract Crosswalk Files. These unique files are derived from the USPS Vacancy Data which are regularly updated by the USPS which makes them uniquely positioned to describe human settlements patterns between census tract delineations. These data use the locations of ZIP+4 centroids, an extremely granular level of geography, the number of addresses of various types (residential, business, other, and total), and do not rely on ancillary data to map where population or households might be located.

There are two types of HUD-USPS Census Tract Crosswalk Files to use. The first are used to crosswalk data from 2010 through 2019 in 2010 census tracts to 2020 census tracts. The second are used to crosswalk data from 2020 through 2023 in 2020 census tracts to 2010 census tracts. It is important to note that the relationship between the two types of crosswalk files is not perfectly inverse. That is to say, the 2010 to 2020 census tract crosswalk files cannot be used to crosswalk data from 2020 to 2010 census tracts and the inverse cannot be used, either.

In addition to the files, this collection also includes screenshots of the documentation and FAQ pages on HUD's distribution site.

***Microdata: No Level of Analysis: Group - GEOID, residential ratios Variables Present: Yes - separate document File Layout: .xslx Codebook: No Methods: Yes Weights (with appropriate documentation): No Publications: Yes Aggregate Data: Yes