[SPIKE] Research options for implementing search by census tract ID

[katherinedm-usds]

Purpose

This may warrant being a research spike, searching for census tract ID may primarily be a feature that is helpful for those who are already familiar with specific census tracts, as well as us internally as we investigate census tracts people provide feedback on. It is a feature that members of the public have requested via email.

Solutions

Evaluating two approaches

1. build an index of fips code to location, then when map is zoomed on that location, queryRenderedFeatures to highlight / get data on the tract (from Mikel)
2. Here is the link to the main TIGERweb REST Services page: TIGERweb REST Services (census.gov) Here is the direct link to the REST Services 2010 Census tracts page: Layer: Census Tracts (ID: 14) (from census.gov)

Need to understand the complexity of each solution (and costs) next...

Census.gov / arcGIS

1. created an arcGIS dev account - https://developers.arcgis.com/dashboard/
2. was able to get the tutorial endpoint to return something
3. working on census tract API now...

[lucasmbrown-usds]

One idea -- I have no idea if it's worthwhile or not -- would be to check the search string to see if it's exactly 11 numerical digits, and if it is, process as a census tract, and if it isn't, send to the geocoder.

[BethMattern]

@vim-usds I think I'd like to deprioritize this for now so to clear the way for some of the bug fixes assigned to you in the sprint backlog and the upcoming work to update site copy and add a few new pages. Concerns?

[vim-usds]

@Beth - agreed!