CERC provides a clear database of information pertaining to demographics, economics, education, government, housing, labor, and quality of life. You can compare/contrast towns’ statistics with each other and to county and state averages. This is very useful to have when analyzing issues, such as discrepancies between cities and surrounding towns. For instance, the poverty rate in Hartford is at 30.6%. Compare that to 4.5% in the neighboring West Hartford, and 2.2% in Simsbury.