Much community profiling is concerned only with the present or recent past (since that is when most information is available for), although it often is intended to feed into future thinking. Often the last 3-4 years is looked at, partly to see if there are any immediate trends and partly to allow ‘pooling’ of data across several years (where the data is limited). Much census data is available over the last 10 years (i.e. 1996-2006) and this allows better establishing of trends.

Looking forward, Stats NZ does provide population projections up to 2031. However, for many other topics much more limited extrapolation is all that is possible. 

Comparisons

To provide a broader context for a community profile information from higher level units such as local authorities, regions or New Zealand as a whole are often used. Typologies of different types of community have been developed in the scholarly literature. Sometimes a community is compared against another that is seen as generally similar.