In this year’s final edition of Cityscape, a periodical published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research, ESI’s Community Data Analytics (CDA) team documents the process of updating demographic multipliers for use in impact analyses, beyond the traditional school-age children and average household size. This update improves upon the methodology used to derive the 2006 “Fannie Mae” multiplier series. The CDA team includes Dr. Sidney Wong, project lead, Dr. Daniel Miles, vice president and associate principal at Econsult Solutions, Alison Shott, associate director Econsult Solutions, Brooke Queenan, senior research analyst at Econsult Solutions, and Gabrielle Connor, research analyst at Econsult Solutions. Demographic multipliers are vital instruments when conducting economic impact analyses to properly determine how new housing developments will impact schools, traffic patterns, and municipal finances. Because census data is a major determining factor in the generation of these multipliers, using outdated census data may result in over- or underestimating economic impacts when conducting an analysis. In order to update the multipliers, the team needed to complete four major steps: select PUMS records, create housing configuration, populate observations by housing configuration and, finally, calculate the multipliers. Upon developing the new CDA multipliers, a number of major changes came to light. For starters, most states saw a decline in average household size and the number of school-age children from 2000 to 2015, which reflects a recent national trend, and must be taken into account when conducting demographic analyses. Second, the team is now able to develop multipliers for smaller geographies, which greatly improves the accuracy of future population estimates. To view the full publication click here. To view the article by the ESI/CDA team click here. To download CDA Residential Demographic Multipliers click here.