---
task_categories:
- tabular-regression
- tabular-classification
language:
- en
pretty_name: 'Ames Iowa: Alternative to the Boston Housing Data Set'
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
license: unknown
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files: "AmesHousing.csv"
  default: true
  sep: ","
- config_name: features
  data_files: "features.json"
---

# 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 about residential properties sold in Ames, IA from 2006 to 2010. This repository is a mirror the original dataset meant to facilitate its consumption.

The dataset was originally 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), it is meant as a resource for teaching machine learning as an alternative to the old and small Boston Housing Dataset.


## 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 [`./originals/DataDocumentation.txt`](./originals/DataDocumentation.txt), structured metadata describing the features was extracted manually in [`./features.json`](./features.json`).

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}
}
```