Chicago Neighborhood Survey

Chicago prides itself as “The City of Neighborhoods” but where are they? Other than the 77 “Community Areas” mapped out in the 1920s, no official neighborhood boundaries exist. Chicago needs an update!

With generous support from the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, we invited Chicago residents to draw their own and other neighborhoods within the city using an online mapping interface, which is still available here: Chicago Neighborhood Survey. Between December 2023 and April 2024, we received about 5,500 drawn neighborhoods. We are still analyzing these results, but one consolidated map image is available at this link.

We recruited responses via email to community groups, social media, targeted web advertisements, flyering, collaborations with news media, and word of mouth.