California Neighborhoods Count

Photos by AzmanL / Getty Images, Andrei / Adobe Stock

California Neighborhoods Count is a survey sponsored by the State of California. Starting in the spring of 2020, the survey reached more than 23,000 households in 173 neighborhoods across the state, and measured the success of California’s unprecedented efforts to encourage participation in the 2020 U.S. Census. The survey was undertaken by RAND with support from UCLA’s California Center for Population Research. The report detailing the findings was released in September, 2020.

As part of the survey, RAND collected information about the sociodemographic characteristics of residents, living arrangements within households, and quality of life in the neighborhood. Along with data collected from the 2020 Census, data from the California Neighborhoods Count will be used by the state to determine resource funding decisions and planning—including decisions on healthcare, housing, schools, senior centers, public safety, and roads—all across the state. Learn more about the survey.

Read the Report

2020 California Neighborhoods Count: Validation of U.S. Census Population Counts and Housing Characteristic Estimates Within California
In response to concerns about the accuracy of decennial census data, researchers conducted the California Neighborhoods Count — the first independent, survey-based enumeration to directly evaluate the accuracy of the U.S. Census Bureau's population totals for a subset of California census blocks.
Sep 20, 2022

Meet Our Survey Team

Our team of professional interviewers visited homes, apartments, and other dwellings to administer the California Neighborhoods Count survey in 2020.

Project Leaders

Robert Bozick
Principal Investigator
Robert Bozick is a senior demographer at RAND.
Lane Burgette
Principal Investigator
Lane Burgette is a senior statistician at RAND.
Beverly Weidmer
Co-Principal Investigator
Beverly Weidmer is a senior survey director in the Survey Research Group at RAND.
Jennie Brand
Co-Principal Investigator
Jennie Brand is a professor of sociology and statistics at UCLA and is director of UCLA’s California Center for Population Research.
Walter Schwarm
Project Officer
Walter Schwarm is the chief demographer, and oversees population estimates, projections, and census affiliate work at the California Department of Finance.