News Updates

How CMAP’s Community Data Snapshots support local planning and public engagement

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s (CMAP) Community Data Snapshots help local governments understand their communities’ key characteristics. Each snapshot includes the latest information on population, housing, jobs, land use, and other topics from local, state, and federal sources. It makes it easy to quickly find credible data without searching through multiple data portals or lengthy documents.

The Community Data Snapshots can help local governments prepare for public meetings, open houses, and the early stages of planning projects. The snapshots offer a clear way to present current conditions and help your residents understand the context of a local project.

CMAP also relies on the Community Data Snapshots to strengthen community engagement. For example, while preparing outreach materials for a planning project in River Grove, staff members used data from the community’s snapshot to create an informational poster. By sharing this local data, CMAP helped residents better understand how the project connected to community trends, which encouraged residents to ask questions and share their perspectives.

“We used statistics from the snapshot to create a poster that attracted community members to our table at the River Front Fest. It gave them something tangible to react to,” said CMAP Senior Planner Lily Brack. “The data provided a starting point for conversations and allowed community members to share their perspectives.”

The snapshots are a practical tool for communicating with the public — they can be incorporated into presentations, reports, social media posts, project websites, and more — to support clear, consistent messaging grounded in trusted local data.

Explore your Community Data Snapshot to find information you can use in your own outreach and planning efforts. We’d also love to hear how you’re using the snapshots. Email data@cmap.illinois.gov or tag @cmapillinois on social media with examples from your community.