Levels of Analysis in Chicago Research
The city of Chicago is commonly divided by residents into its neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are based, in part, on the 77 community areas originally outlined by Robert Park. Within these 77 community areas, census tracts are numbered by the community area they are located in. For example, a census tract in Lower West Side would start with the number 31, which corresponds to its community area number. The only exception to this is the community area of Edgewater, which starts with the number 03. Edgewater was formerly a part of Uptown. These vary in size, containing anywhere between 4,000 and 130,000 residents, but average at about 50,000 residents. Smaller neighborhoods within the community areas are also named, though these boundaries are not as fixed and do change over time. An incomplete listing of neighborhood names is available at Wikipedia's Chicago neighborhoods page.

Other levels of analysis include:
Public Use Micro-areas (PUMAS) - units of between 100,000 and 200,000 residents.17 of these areas divide the city of Chicago.
Wards -
Parishes -
Districts and beats - the Chicago Police Department is responsible for dividing the city into 25 areas, or districts. Crime data is reported by the police department both for the entire city and by district. A map of the district areas is available at the Chicago Police Department page.

Data Sets
- Chicago Public School GIS
- City of Chicago Department of Zoning
- CLEAR GIS
- GIS Shapefiles
- Map Files
- Map USA: Chicago
- National Historical GIS (login required)