Chicagoans do not have a regular, affordable means to share their opinions on city issues.

There is a critical gap in understanding the perspectives, needs, and lived experience of Chicago’s diverse residents, particularly in disinvested communities whose voices are often underrepresented in programs, policymaking, investments, and reporting. Without access to affordable, frequent reliable information directly from a representative sample of city residents, community organizations, foundations, policymakers, and media are often left to guess about community priorities, opinions, hopes and behaviors. This lack of insight hinders efforts to improve the quality of life for all Chicagoans.

ChicagoSpeaks provides insights from Chicagoans to inform policymaking, investments, and media coverage.

The vision is for ChicagoSpeaks to offer the city a scientifically rigorous, affordable community-driven research resource for informing residents, policymakers, service providers, researchers, media, and elected officials with accurate information about the experiences, behaviors, and opinions of all Chicago residents. ChicagoSpeaks is a representative panel of Chicago residents offering meaningful data on a vast range of important topics. This panel gives a voice to city residents on problems facing communities, including public safety, community development, immigration, jobs, politics, and many more.

ChicagoSpeaks plans to include accessible data visualization and dissemination strategies, so the insights generated have real, positive impact on the quality of life of Chicagoans, particularly those whose voices are often heard the least. Through a regular “pulse survey,” ChicagoSpeaks will create a common information base and trend data on topics of interest to city residents. These surveys will be accessible to all Chicagoans.