Finding the Obamas In the 2000 Census

An anonymous reader writes "This 'how-to' example of accessing demographic data from the U.S. Census 'American FactFinder' zooms down to the block level in Chicago to (possibly) find the Obama family in the year 2000."

Finding People In 2000

[guttentag]

In 2000 I had several coworkers who moved out of their apartments and into their cubicles. They reasoned that they spent so much time there anyway, and got free high speed internet, it didn't make sense to pay for rent, gas, and utilities just to spend 8-10 hours a week in traffic. The company quietly encouraged it too, moving everyone to a building that had shower facilities in the restroom and allowed them to install curtains and inflatable doors on their cubicles.

I wonder if the census counted them as living in our office building, or if it just skipped them entirely. I suspect it skipped them, because the census takers wouldn't have come to our office park and the company wouldn't want documentation that it violated zoning laws. Still it's fun to think that 60 years from now their grandchildren might find them listed as "Mr. H Potter, the sleeping bag under the desk, cubicle 5, row 8, 2nd floor, building 9," etc. Then again, they were engineers whose 20s and 30s were spent reading slashdot and literally living in their cubicles... they probably didn't have kids.