DataPlace has worked with The Urban Institute to prepare these helpful guides about several of the principal datasets which are available on DataPlace. Read these to familiarize yourself with the available data and how to use and interpret it.

Business Patterns Data Set Technical Documentation, November 2006 Beata Bajaj and Kathryn L.S. Pettit The Urban Institute PDF, 13 pages, 82.3k	Dataset Guide to Business Patterns and Trends: National Summary Draft, August 2005 Beata Bajaj, G. Thomas Kingsley, and Kathryn L.S. Pettit The Urban Institute PDF, 31 pages, 299k
A Guide to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Data Kathryn L.S. Pettit and Audrey E. Droesch The Urban Institute PDF, 33 pages, 664k