Managing Information for Development Planning:
Tracking Land Parcels on the Near West Side
1997
The Near West Side is one of the most rapidly changing communities in
Chicago. The pace and scale of the changes create tremendous challenges
to community organizations in tracking, analyzing, and presenting information
necessary to their development, advocacy, and planning missions. The Near
West Side Development Corporation (NWSDC) asked the City Design Center
to develop a prototypical Geographic Information System (GIS) for tracking
land parcels in their community, in particular for storing, displaying,
and analyzing property information for a 4-block area. To meet the immediate
needs of NWSDC, a School of Architecture intern, under the supervision
of a faculty member, tracked vacant lots which NWSDC had or was acquiring
from the City of Chicago, analyzed surrounding conditions and development
constraints, and recommended preliminary site plans. His work was an instrumental
part of the construction process for several new homes in the Near West
Side community.
Commenting on the usefulness of the GIS project, Dave Walker, past Executive
Director of the Near West Side Development Corporation said: “GIS
was very helpful because we could correlate the geographic information
to a data base that we had already created, so we could adapt our analysis
as quickly as the rapid pace of change in land use possibilities. This
enabled our community, making it proactive rather than reactive. Residents
of the West Side suddenly stood on the leading edge of technology.”
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Map of Chicago with project location
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City Design Center Affiliated Faculty
Tom Forman, Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, and
Associate Director, City Design Center
Yeqiao Wang, Assistant Professor, Geography Program
Tingwei Zhang, Assistant Professor, Urban Planning Program
Collaborating Organization
Near West Side Development Corporation
Funding
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development UIC Great Cities Initiative
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