---
task_categories:
- tabular-regression
- tabular-classification
language:
- en
pretty_name: 'Ames Iowa: Alternative to the Boston Housing Data Set'
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
---

# Dataset Card for 'Ames Iowa: Alternative to the Boston Housing Data Set'

<!-- Provide a quick summary of the dataset. -->

This dataset contains information from the Ames Assessor’s Office used in computing assessed values for individual residential properties sold in Ames, IA from 2006 to 2010.

It was published by Dean De Cock in [Ames, Iowa: Alternative to the Boston Housing Data as an End of Semester Regression Project](https://jse.amstat.org/v19n3/decock.pdf).

> This repository is meant as a mirror of the original dataset to facilitate its consumption.


## Dataset Details

### Dataset Description

<!-- Provide a longer summary of what this dataset is. -->

- **Curated by:** Dean De Cock, Truman State University
- **License:** Unknown

Full description of the dataset is in [./DataDocumentation.txt](./DataDocumentation.txt)

The main dataset file is [`AmesHousing.csv`](./AmesHousing.csv) is the result of a simple preprocessing of the original file, the preprocessing script is in [`./preprocessing/preprocess.py`](preprocessing/preprocess.py).

### Dataset Sources

<!-- Provide the basic links for the dataset. -->

- **Original Data:**
  - excel format (xls): https://jse.amstat.org/v19n3/decock/AmesHousing.xls (mirrored in [./originals/AmesHousing.xls])
  - text format (tsv): https://jse.amstat.org/v19n3/decock/AmesHousing.txt (mirrored in [./originals/AmesHousing.txt])
- **Paper:** [De Cock, D. (2011). Ames, Iowa: Alternative to the Boston Housing Data as an End of Semester Regression Project. Journal of Statistics Education, 19(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2011.11889627](https://jse.amstat.org/v19n3/decock.pdf)

## Uses

<!-- Address questions around how the dataset is intended to be used. -->

This dataset was designed as an alternative for the well-known [Boston Housing Data Set](http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/boston), mostly for teaching purposes. 


## Dataset Creation

### Curation Rationale

<!-- Motivation for the creation of this dataset. -->

The original author of this dataset was motivated to assemble a larger and more contemporary dataset: the boston housing dataset covers data from the 1970s and only has 506 observations, ie prices, over 14 variables.

### Source Data

<!-- This section describes the source data (e.g. news text and headlines, social media posts, translated sentences, ...). -->

The original author of the dataset obtain the raw data directly from the Ames, Iowa, City Assessor’s Office.

## Citation

<!-- If there is a paper or blog post introducing the dataset, the APA and Bibtex information for that should go in this section. -->

**BibTeX:**

```
@article{de2011ames,
  title={Ames, Iowa: Alternative to the Boston housing data as an end of semester regression project},
  author={De Cock, Dean},
  journal={Journal of Statistics Education},
  volume={19},
  number={3},
  year={2011},
  publisher={Taylor \& Francis}
}
```