Mayor's Office Launches Interactive Online Mapping Tool: City Hall in Your Community

Today, Mayor Emanuel’s Office launched City Hall in Your Community, an interactive online mapping tool that provides the people of Chicago an easy way to see how the City is serving and interacting with residents across the city. Residents can also suggest issues the City should address and locations where the City’s leaders should go throughout their communities.
“This tool is another way we are increasing accountability and transparency across City government –Chicagoans can literally see what their government is doing and where,” said Social Media Director Kevin Hauswirth. “Whether it’s at a neighborhood fest or on Facebook, the Mayor is committed to having a dialogue with the people of this city.”
This innovative mapping tool provides the people of Chicago with an easy-to-use, up-to-date way to follow the activities of the City, and is part of the Emanuel Administrations’ continuing efforts to increase accountability and transparency across City government, including:

• The City of Chicago’s open Data Portal, data.cityofchicago.org. The portal hosts over 200 datasets that allow users to track information including City employee salaries, crime data, city contracts, lobbyist disclosures, debarred vendors and abandoned buildings. Since Mayor Emanuel took office on May 16, 2011, the open data portal has logged more than 430,373 views and about 35 million rows of data have been accessed.

• ChicagoBudget.org, the first interactive budget website. People across Chicago can engage in the City’s budget process. To date, more than 8,600 ideas and comments for addressing the City’s challenges have been posted, generating over 55,000 votes from nearly 3,000 people.

• Creating the City’s most comprehensive lobbyist disclosure database. Last month, Mayor Emanuel announced the release of additional lobbyist data, for the first time linking City lobbyist activities, compensation and expenses with each lobbyist client.

You can access City Hall in Your Community at www.cityofchicago.org/cityhallinyourcommunity. To view the data portal, go to data.cityofchicago.org.