The Chicago Neighborhood Project
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!
This project asks current Chicago residents to identify Chicago's neighborhoods using an interactive map to draw neighborhood boundaries. The project’s goals are twofold. First, we want to understand how residents’ views of their neighborhoods differ from administrative boundaries. Second, we hope to document the heterogenous views of neighborhoods held by geographically proximate neighbors. This work contributes to the scholarly debate about how places are represented in the minds of individuals, how these representations are best measured, and what is obscured by an over-reliance on long-ago-defined administrative boundaries.
Take the survey here: Chicago Neighborhood Survey
Preliminary findings
Learning from the Chicago Neighborhood Project (Mansueto Institute Colloquium Series)
Press coverage
What Are Your Neighborhood’s Borders? Study Asks Chicagoans To Weigh In (Block Club Chicago)
You can help update Chicago's decades-old community map (Crain’s Chicago)
A New Survey Asks Chicagoans: What’s Your Neighborhood? (Chicago Magazine)
How You Can Help Redefine Chicago’s Community Boundaries (Chicago Tonight: Black Voices, WTTW)
Interview: Who Defines the City of Neighborhoods (Starting at 7:26)(On The Block, WCIU CW26)
If you have questions about this research study, you can contact the research team at urbanism@uchicago.edu.
This project is a collaboration between Professor Emily Talen, Professor Crystal Bae, and Lydia Wileden. It is supported by an Urban Innovations Grant from the Mansueto Institute.