Using `tinytiger`
In tinytiger: Lightweight Interface to TIGER/Line Shapefiles

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>"
)

tinytiger is designed to be low dependency to allow packages and newer R users to use TIGER lines and shapefiles without accruing non-standard dependencies. It has four dependencies: - sf, needed to work with shapefiles - curl, needed for downloading the files from the Census Bureau - cli, used to create clear errors, warnings, and messages. - glue, used for constructing complex URLs and already a dependency of cli

While cli is not necessary, it fits within our goals that tinytiger to be friendly for package development and new users, as cli is one of the most-widely downloaded R packages and comes with but one dependency itself.

Using `tinytiger`

library(tinytiger)

tinytiger has methods to download TIGER shapes for most Census geographies. A full list are available on the tinytiger website.

To download any shapes, we can use the corresponding function for the geography. All functions are prefixed with tt_.

For counties, for example, we can run:

counties <- tt_counties()

# depends on (1) internet and (2) successful download
counties <- NULL
try(counties <- tt_counties())
dl_success <- !is.null(counties)

head(counties)

Other options for downloads are:

r paste0("* \x60", setdiff(ls("package:tinytiger"), c("county_fips_2020", "tt_cache_clear", "tt_cache_path", "tt_cache_size")), "()\x60", collapse="\n")