Chicago Community Area Maps - Invest SW Chicago

 If  you've read many of the articles on this site I show ways maps can be used for planning that fills specific geographic areas with a wide range of needed supports, including mentor-rich non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs.  I share maps created in past years by my organization and maps and data platforms created by others.

One such resource is the City of Chicago's Invest South West initiative.  The home page of the website shows a map of Chicago and the 10 featured community areas.

The Invest South West Initiative was launched in 2019.  According to information on the website, its planning conversations "have helped guide decision-making on concentration and alignment of public investments, as well as efforts to catalyze additional private investment for the 10 target neighborhoods."

For each community area a PDF map is available. The one below shows Englewood.

This map has a lot of detail but since it is in PDF format I doubt that it will do much to support planning and a deeper understanding of assets and opportunities. There's no parallel map that shows where investments have been made, or what those investments support.  Maybe that will come in the future.

I've been aggregating links that use interactive maps to support planning and I share some of these in the concept map shown below. 

Then in articles like this, on the Tutor/Mentor blog I use maps in stories intended to focus attention and resources on specific parts of the city.  The city GIS department could borrow ideas from some of these.

If you've examples of interactive maps supporting city planning, or supporting the growth of non-school youth tutor/mentor programs, in Chicago or in any other city, please share the links.  The more we can show how some people are doing this the more we can influence others to do the same, and even better.

That's the goal of the information-based problem solving strategies piloted by my organization and myself since 1993.