Affiliations: [a] Cornell University, Center for the Study of Economy
and Society, 2321 Agard Road, Trumansburg, NY 14886, USA. E-mail:
mfarnsworthriche@earthlink.net
| 601 West 113th Street, #12G New York, NY 10025, USA | Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Center for Population
Research, University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677-1848,
USA
Abstract: Important transitions under way here and abroad suggest that the framework of our
informal national measurement system must evolve to meet new policy needs.
Current trends signal that this framework must allow for designing policy
responses to a likely shift in global power. Perhaps the other major new change
relates to changes in the environment, especially as these changes interact with
the population, housing, and economic domains that the census measures. In this
paper, I address broad framework questions, and sketch out likely directions for
policy measurement, with particular attention to interactions across what have
been designed as discrete measurement domains.
