The goal of this research was to determine if some or all of the blocks currently not considered for listing through the Community Address Updating System should be included in the Community Address Updating System universe. The primary data used to make this determination were the results of the 2010 Census Address Canvassing operation and the results of experimental listings conducted by the Community Address Updating System program in 2010. In particular, the Community Address Updating System branch used the percent of new addresses added to the Master Address File by these operations that matched to a delivery point on the Spring 2011 version of the U.S. Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File as its decision statistic.

This decision statistic was used because the primary function of Community Address Updating System block listings is to serve as a complement to the updates provided by the Delivery Sequence File. Since the Delivery Sequence File is not used by the Geography Division to add non-city-style addresses to the Master Address File, the Community Address Updating System has traditionally only listed blocks with a high proportion of pre-existing non-city-style addresses. However, if there was evidence that the Delivery Sequence File was not providing sufficient and/or timely updates to other areas, there could be a benefit from including them in the Community Address Updating System universe.

Since the traditional Community Address Updating System universe is defined in terms of the address characteristic type code, this was the block characteristic examined in this study. Table ES-1 gives the percent of adds from the 2010 Census Address Canvassing and the Community Address Updating System 2010 experimental listings that matched to a Spring 2011 Delivery Sequence File delivery point for blocks in select address characteristic type codes, for blocks currently in the Community Address Updating System universe, and for all other blocks