# Welcome to Chicago Cityscape Chicago Cityscape is a real estate information service that analyzes and publishes data from multiple sources. Chicago Cityscape has a lot of information about properties and places in Illinois, more information about properties and places in Cook County, and the most information about properties and places in Chicago. This guide will explain how Chicago Cityscape organizes information by location, the variety of information offered, and how you can access it through three primary features. It will take 5 minutes to read. ## Information is organized by location All of Chicago Cityscape's real estate information is **location based** and enhanced by knowledge of local rules, customs, and policy. Locations take the form of addresses or properties, and Places. * Our database is familiar with over two million addresses and properties just in Cook County. We can locate millions more addresses across Illinois. * Places are important points of interest, like train stations, as well as legislative, political, administrative, and planning boundaries. This includes congressional districts, ZIP codes, community areas, neighborhoods, and obscure boundaries including building code fire limits, the official definition of Chicago's Central Business District, and the Northwest Side Preservation Ordinance. There are over 46,000 Places across Illinois and Northwestern Indiana. ## Information is diverse Real estate information includes knowledge about: * Permitted and proposed construction projects * People and companies working on construction projects * Zoning districts, rules, and proposed zoning map changes * Transit and transportation * Environmental observations re: trees, solar, and energy use * Property data (owners, taxes paid, sales) * Affordable housing * Businesses, amenities, and social infrastructure * Neighborhood news * Historical buildings and landmark districts * Legislative districts and planning & political boundaries * Demographic and market data *Note that not all data types are available in all geographies covered in Chicago Cityscape. The majority of data is available in Chicago and property data is available in Cook and Lake Counties, Illinois, and Lake County, Indiana, and other data is available for various areas outside of those counties.* ## Information is accessed through 3 primary features Chicago Cityscape remixes REI through dozens of features and functions, but is primarily organized into three primary features: 1. Property Report 2. Place Report 3. Contractor & Developer Profile Each primary feature can be saved for later reference in your account by favoriting it (which can be accessed in My Faves) and adding it to a list (which can be accessed in My Lists). Favorites, or "faves", turn on notifications that send emails when there is new data associated with the fave.  ### 1. Property Report The Property Report feature organizes all of Chicago Cityscape's information based on a single property that is identified by an address or a property tax ID called a "PIN". Look up an address or PIN and the Property Report feature will pull in data from over 160 sources and present it in a single view.  Examples of what an Property Report can do: * A Property Report can show recent and historical sales at the property and nearby. * A Property Report can show on-site and nearby construction projects. ### Next steps - [Look up an address or property](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/address.php). - [[Property Report overview|Learn more about what data a Property Report includes]] ### 2. Place Report A Place Report organizes all of Chicago Cityscape's information based on an area inside a boundary or the area around an important point of interest (like a CTA or Metra train station). Users can also draw their Personal Place that's stored with their account, or upload an existing map to their account and convert it to a Personal Place. A Place Report will pull in data from over 50 databases and present it in a single view.  Examples of what a Place Report can do: * A Place Report can show all building permits issued to locations within a specified community area, ZIP code, ward, or one of thousands of other Places. * A Place Report can show all of the properties on a map and list the corresponding property data in a downloadable spreadsheet.  Many Place Report also link to additional analysis features. For Places in Chicago, examine zoning districts using Zoning Map Explorer. Places that are Census tracts link to demographic and statistical data. Places in Chicagoland show housing submarket descriptions developed to understand regional housing issues. ### Next steps - [Find a Place](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/maps/index.php) - [draw a Personal Place](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/draw.php) ### 3. Contractor & Developer Profile A Contractor & Developer Profile is an automatically generated page, one for each of the people or businesses associated with a Chicago building permit. As of March 29, 2020, there are 246,109 companies associated with 619,952 Chicago building permits. Many types of people and companies can be associated with a Chicago building permit, and Chicago building permits are issued for construction projects large and small. There are architects, structural engineers, plumbing, masonry, and electrical contractors, and property owners. Permits are issued for replacing drywall or a furnace, fixing a roof, renovating a kitchen, and building a high-rise. Each Contractor & Developer Profile shows a map and spreadsheet of all of the permits they're associated with, a list of companies they're associated with because of building permits in common, and a statistical analysis of when and where in Chicago they did work. ### Next steps - [Look up a company](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/companies.php)