Studio builds a ready-to-use data report about a place. Studio calls this report a profile.
You tell Studio which place you are studying, which places to compare it with, and what kind of report you need. Studio then fills in every section with tables, charts, and short summaries, and names the source of every number. You can change anything you like and download the result as a Word, PDF, or Excel file.
Who it is for
Studio is for anyone who needs the facts about a place in one document: planners writing a housing plan or an existing conditions report, students writing a paper about a city or neighborhood, or staff preparing a grant application. Instead of looking up dozens of tables one at a time, you get them all at once, side by side, with sources.
An example
Say you are writing about housing in Burlington, Vermont. You search for Burlington city, Vermont, compare it with Vermont and the United States, and choose the Existing Conditions report. About a minute later you have a profile with sections on population, income, jobs, and housing. Each table shows Burlington next to Vermont and the nation, so you can see at a glance where Burlington is higher or lower. You export it to PDF and attach it to your paper.
How it works
- Pick your place. Search for a city, county, ZIP code, census tract, or address, or select areas on a map. See Choose a place.
- Add comparisons. Optionally add places to compare against, such as the county, state, and nation. See Add comparison areas.
- Pick a report type. Choose a template, such as Existing Conditions or HUD Consolidated Plan, or start from an empty profile. See Report templates in Studio.
- Get the document. Studio generates the profile, usually in about a minute. Review it, adjust tables and text, and export it. See Export a profile.
What is in a profile
- What stands out: a short, ranked list of the most notable findings, for example a high share of households that spend more than 30% of their income on rent. See Existing Conditions Signals Overview.
- Sections: groups of tables and charts on one topic, such as Housing or Economic Conditions. Each section can have an AI-written summary.
- Sources: every table names where its data comes from, with numbered notes that explain any adjustments.
To try it yourself, follow Your first profile, step by step.
Words you will see
The most common terms are below. For the full list, see Studio terms.
- Profile: the report Studio builds about a place.
- Study area: the place your profile is about.
- Comparison area: another place shown next to your study area in every table, such as its state. Studio sometimes calls these benchmarks.
- Template: the type of report, which decides the sections and tables. See Report templates in Studio.
- Section and block: a section is a chapter of the profile, such as Housing. A block is one item in a section: a table, a chart, a number, a note, or a summary.
- Data source: one table of published data, such as a Census Bureau table on rent.
- ACS: the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau's yearly survey of people and housing. Most profile tables use it.
- Census tract and block group: small areas the Census Bureau uses to report data. A tract is about the size of a neighborhood, usually 1,200 to 8,000 people. A block group is a piece of a tract.
- Stand-in: a nearby or larger area whose data Studio uses when a data source has no numbers for your place. See Data coverage and stand-in geographies.
- What stands out, Signals, and Key Findings: three names for the same list of findings. The profile shows What stands out, the sections list calls it Signals, and Export calls it Key Findings.