In our recent look at the 2010 census, we talked about hard-to-count (HTC) populations and how urban areas, and New York City in particular, have traditionally been undercounted (and thus potentially underfunded and underrepresented). According to the fine folks at CUNY’s Center for Urban Research, we’re not doing much better this year. The Center’s analysis of the first week of participation rates demonstrates clearly that census tracts in urban areas have much lower participation rates than those in non-urban areas.

Steve Romalewski, whom you’ll remember from both our last census post and his Omnibus feature about OASIS 2.0, has just let us know that the Center has been updating its Hard To Count mapping site with this year’s participation data as it comes in. Now you can:

• Type in a county and highlight the tracts below a certain participation rate.

• Sort the resulting list so you can see at a glance the highest and lowest performing tracts as well as their concentration.

• Compare the 2010 rate map with the 2000 rate map.

• Click on any spot on the map to display the latest participation rate for that area (state, county, or tract, depending on your desired zoom level)

Check it out.