Google Gurus, the Hour of Need Has Arisen

March 20, 2008 12:25 PM

Can someone help me find a comprehensive map detailing Chicago racial demographic percentages by neighborhood?

I found a really nice, simple one that was included as part of a UIC student or faculty member's page. It was color-coded and measured racial percentage by neighborhood/ward. I believe the image changed slightly on rollover. Now I can't find the darn thing!

It doesn't seem like this would be a difficult map to locate, given the explosive nature of the topic. But it is. Or perhaps I'm a schmuck. Please help.

Thank you Hive Mind!

posted by Lieber Frau to society & culture (8 comments total)

Various links here. Not sure if any of these are what you're looking for.

I'm at UIC, and have sat in on several of the urban studies classes. There's lots and lots of data out there about this question. You should check out some of the journal databases.

Further two books that deal with this are:

Chicago's Future (edited by Dick Simpson)

and

The New Chicago

Both are excellent. You can get them at the library, or at student bookstores around town.

If you need specific help you're welcome to MeFi Mail me... I can ask around my department or maybe direct you to other folks.
posted by wfrgms at 12:34 PM on March 20, 2008

Not as nice as what you describe, but the City of Chicago has various demographic maps based on race/ethnicity by census tract. All in PDF form, alas. However, they were almost definitely generated digitally, so if you ask the right person nicely, perhaps you can get them in original form. It all depends what you are trying to do. Creating these is fairly trivial with a copy of ArcGIS and a free download of Census data.
posted by desjardins at 12:56 PM on March 20, 2008

The map on this page looks a little bit like what you are describing. Click for a larger version.

There is also this interactive map which is not what you described but is also very interesting. Good luck.
posted by OpinioNate at 1:02 PM on March 20, 2008

Note that the historical Chicago "black neighborhoods" and "white neighborhoods" aren't any more. A lot of the data you find may well be out of date.
posted by gjc at 7:07 PM on March 20, 2008

Thanks, guys! None of these are the one I found, but they are great resources anyway. I'll be sure to make the most of them.
posted by Lieber Frau at 8:17 PM on March 20, 2008

This won't help you if you just want the map already made, but if you have a map making program (like ArcGIS) or access to one (some universities have site licenses for labs), then you can download census information from the US Government and census tract boundaries from ESRI - there are links in this Askmefi thread (self link to earlier comment by other people and me, so I don't have to so all that html again).
posted by jb at 6:52 AM on March 21, 2008

This dynamic map of U.S. census data is always useful:

Social Explorer

..but they only have 2000 and older data.
posted by mbatch at 6:59 AM on March 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

For those who are interested, here is the link.

Chicago's Ghetto, 1910-2000.
posted by Lieber Frau at 2:44 PM on March 21, 2008