Profiles of Chicago-area suburbs, neighborhoods, and subdivisions, from village basics to individual communities. Built to answer the question every mover asks: what is it actually like to live there?
Woodlawn’s median house sold for $114,678 in 2019 and $347,500 in 2025, three times as much, on 35 and 39 sales. Its median two-to-six-flat, at $462,000, is above the citywide $445,000. And the South Side area has more two-to-six-flats on the tax rolls than it had in 2006: 1,740 against 1,695. Rebuilt September 30, 2026 on the county’s updated sales file.
West Englewood’s median house sold for $40,000 in 2019 and $152,500 in 2025, the largest rise among the 70 Chicago community areas with enough sales to compare. Its median two-to-six-flat went from $63,000 to $220,000, also the largest rise. The Assessor valued the homes sold there in 2025 at 57 percent of their prices with every sale counted, the lowest of the 65 areas with a figure, and at 63 percent with recent resales set aside. Rebuilt September 30, 2026 on the county’s updated sales file.
New City, the South Side community area that includes Back of the Yards and Canaryville, is one of three areas where four of the five market signals in our analysis are active. First-time business licenses went from 80 in 2019 to 214 in 2025, and the median two-to-six-flat price doubled, from $115,000 to $230,000. Rebuilt September 30, 2026 on the county’s updated sales file.
The Near West Side, directly west of the Loop, had 53 new-construction permits in the first half of 2026, the most of any Chicago community area, and none of the five market signals in our analysis is active there. Its median house price rose 16 percent from 2019 to 2025, the smallest rise among the 70 areas with enough sales to compare. Rebuilt September 30, 2026 on the county’s updated sales file.
East Garfield Park, on Chicago’s West Side, is one of three community areas where four of the five market signals in our analysis are active. New-construction permits went from 17 in 2018–19 to 64 in 2024–25, and the median two-to-six-flat sold for $370,000 in 2025, up from $199,000 in 2019. Rebuilt September 30, 2026 on the county’s updated sales file.
We mapped all 77,942 Chicago house appeals from tax year 2025 against 446,354 house parcels. Filing runs about 12 times higher on the North Side lakefront than on the Southwest and Southeast Sides - and the low-filing areas win more often when they file.
Forty-four buildings are on the city's published scofflaw list. Four have been on every list for four and a half years, the oldest case was filed in 2016, and fourteen of them sit in a single community area. The record, read as the court docket it is.
Five market signals scored from public records in all 77 Chicago community areas: house prices, two-to-six-flat prices, company buyers, new-construction permits and new business licenses. Three areas west and south of downtown show four of five; Logan Square, Avondale and the Lower West Side show none. Recomputed September 30, 2026, on the county’s updated sales file, with a correction to the company-buyer share.
Every UP-NW station town from Park Ridge to Harvard, plus the corridor's no-station communities — 23 towns with current Census population, home value, and income figures. Companion to our west suburbs reference.
Search interest in South Shore is up 22% since the Obama Presidential Center opened. Six years ago, the neighborhood was cut from the housing-protection ordinance that covers Woodlawn. Here's the evidence, and its limits.
