The city of Lake Forest updates a list of residents who have signed up for Rec Center services on a yearly basis. To aid in seeing the layout of where these residents are located, the City has used GIS to map out point locations for each address recorded. In addition to the point locations, a density analysis is also run to help give a more visual, picture of the results. This year’s map included 2500 addresses, which accounts for nearly 40% of all households in the city.

The Village of Glencoe being a member of the GIS Consortium has a data sharing agreement in place with Cook County Illinois. This agreement allows the Village of Glencoe to receive County Parcel data which includes mapping, parcel information, PIN numbers, County assessor information, and many other very important land based information records.

The Village of Skokie Beautification and Improvement Commission assists the Mayor and Trustees in landscaping and conservation issues. Every year, the Commission seeks out properties whose owners maintain it at an exceptional level. During this time, the commission visits each nominated property, taking pictures and notes. The most time consuming part of this process is driving to all of these properties. That is where the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) comes in.

The City of Highland Park recently developed a business page for their website. The purpose of the page is to promote Highland Park as a great place to establish new businesses. Providing the location available for commercial leasing is an excellent way to assist a businessperson with locating a good area to start their business.

Water meter billing can be a significant source of revenue for any local government, so ensuring that the billing address information is valid and complete is critical to the success of collecting all the necessary fees. A key component to maintaining these utility accounts is assuring they are up to date and cross-checked with other sources, which can often be difficult and time-consuming. To assist with validating the account locations for each billing record, the City of Des Plaines Public Works department asked the city’s GIS department to map out all the utility billing addresses in order to get a better understanding of where potential address problems exist.

This month, Lake Forest staff were presented with a new format for accessing GIS data, as well as PDF maps for printing use. The new setup uses a shared, read-only folder that is hosted on the GIS server, and contains layer files for most of the City’s GIS data.

The village of Riverside GIS (Geographic Information System) program mapped crosswalk locations in an area of town due to an event that occurred near a school. As a result of initiating this data creation, the remaining village crosswalks and some additional roadway striping information were mapped to have a complete inventory of their locations in the GIS system. Various village departments can now benefit from this information.

Lake Forest will have access to the web version of MapOffice beginning June 1st. The month of May was spent preparing the base data needed to get MapOffice up and running, which involved loading previous GIS data into the GIS Consortium standardized database.

The Special Service Area 16 came up for it’s first three year review in the Spring of 2010. The City Manager required methods to determine if the Special Service Area had fulfilled it’s goal of maintaining an economically vibrant downtown. He decided that a study of the location units used for retail, services, office, and vacant units would supply the required information

Although Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to store and retrieve data often times in a highly complex fashion, they also provide a medium for map simple production. A special event map is a regular request of GIS professionals and can be generated in a relatively short time frame with good communication between the event coordinators and the map maker.

With the building of a new village hall and an updated police station, the Village of Wheeling took the opportunity to put in a new sprinkler system for the outdoor areas of both buildings. The sprinkler system consists of roughly 600 sprinkler heads varying in size, flow, and type tied into a computer system. The Village of Wheeling requested that a map be created showing the location of all the features within the system overlaid on aerial imagery.

The Village of Oak Brook hosts the “Taste of Oak Brook” annually during the fourth of July weekend. The event features fireworks, live entertainment and food from local vendors. Since the event draws in a large number of people, the Village wanted to make sure that there was adequate parking so they enlisted the help of GIS. In GIS, parking areas were designated using aerial photography and existing parking lot information. Parking spaces were drawn for field parking based on the village parking regulations and the number of spaces in these areas was determined. Parking spaces were also determined for paved parking lots.

Springtime in the Chicago land area in some cases can mean more noise from construction then the sounds of birds chirping. And although the nice weather at this time of year allows for field crews to work with little disruption, local residents would often disagree that they are not disturbed. When streets are suddenly closed or traffic begins to build, residents of a community can certainly become irritated and thus complain to the community staff. Even though it is impossible to stop these complaints completely, a community can do their best to notify the residents where and when these big construction projects will be occurring, this is exactly what the Village of Morton Grove, IL did.

Every year the City of Park Ridge, IL contracts with a photogrammetric firm in order to collect important planimteric data such as buildings, driveways, sidewalks, etc. in a computer usable digital format. This data is fundamentally important as it provides a backbone for a Geographic Information System (GIS) and allows for in-depth analysis that can help a city understand the scope of what lies within their city limits. Whether it is counting how many homes are within a floodplain or estimating how many sidewalk squares a community must review each year, this planimetric data has its use. For without it, local governments would have to resort to alternative methods such as laborious field checks or manual counts in a Sidwell parcel map atlas.

A recent development in the Riverside, IL Geographic Information System (GIS) has been the creation of a street inventory. Information captured includes the type of surface material, road base material, cross section type, curb and gutter information, last improved dates, planned improvement dates, and other statistics that can be derived from the GIS such as the length of roadway and even surface area could be calculated quickly.

A recent development in the Glenview, IL Geographic Information System (GIS) has been the creation of the landscape site locations. Information created includes the site description and which group the site is associated with. One other statistic that can quickly be calculated using GIS, is the total area for each site.

The Tyler Edens application is an important financial and permit enterprise system that allows the city easily track finances and permit status. The application will only function efficiently if it has good base information such as zoning districts, addresses, and owner information. This information is readily available but requires the tools within the GIS to combine this information into one table. The GIS tools also clean up the County provided assessor owner information to assure owners within the city of Highland Park has correct street names. The GIS office annually creates a flattened import file that is used to keep the Edens data current.

The Village of Winnetka hosts numerous special events over the course of a year and, for each event, the Police and Public Works departments are involved in providing operational support. These events range from parades to festivals and require a wide-range of supportive actions. These actions are assigned via an event orders sheet provided to each department that describes the extent of the event and where various elements of the event are occurring. However, in the order sheet format, it can be difficult for personnel to get an overall view of the event’s total operations. To assist with providing this comprehensive view for the Village’s Memorial Day parade, the GIS Department was asked to develop a mapping product that would help assigned personnel to be better informed about the overall event orders.

The Village of Lincolnwood uses their Geographic Information System (GIS) to promote vacant businesses on their website, trying to lure new tenants into the area. Providing this information, not only gives developers an opportunity to see the statistics on the property, it provides a map to visualize the area. Currently, this map also provides traffic counts for major thorough-fares.

Every ten years the U.S. Census Bureau conducts a survey in order to find out how many people are living in a specific area among other things. Once completed with the survey, they then eventually release this information to the public. The ability to access this data from the Census Bureau as well as its use to answer important questions is at times invaluable. For the City of Park Ridge, IL, they decided to use the Geographic Information System (GIS) as there catalyst for first accessing this information from the Census Bureau and second, to determine how many people are living within each municipal election ward.

MGP Inc. through it's relationship with the GIS Consortium has in-depth experience building GIS data for New World Systems (NWS) implementations. GIS data has been built for the following municipalities by MGP; Glenview, Deerfield, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Winnetka, Wilmette*, Kenilworth*, Grays Lake* and Bannockburn.* The communities with a "*" are not members of the GIS Consortium.

Address data is the backbone of the municipal government. Services, including refuse pickup and police and fire response, and taxes depend on current and accurate addressing. The Village of Skokie Community Development Department and Geographic Information System (GIS) staff have realized the importance of consolidating address databases in the recent months. A major factor in this decision was the difference in address data for a recent mass mailing.

Within the GIS, manmade features such as buildings, bridges, railroads, and roads are classified as planimetric data. The city contracts with Ayres Associates to update planimetric features for about twenty-five percent of the City each year. This ensures that none of the base mapping within the city is older than 5 years. Updated base map layers are important to ensure that new construction and redevelopment area are accurately reflected in the base map features.

The Village of Skokie has progressively added new users, taking advantage of the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS). While adding users is key to the success of the GIS Program, new users have a learning curve for the new applications and software whether it be ArcView™ or MapOffice Advanced™. Training and demonstrations can alleviate many of the questions and issues users have with interacting with the new technology.

The Village of Norridge has a newsletter that they typically mail to all addresses in the village. In addition to going to all houses, the newsletters are sent to every unit in every apartment or condo building. Because of the natural turnover in apartment renting, many times the newsletters come back to the village because there is no one currently living at the address. This costs the village money in returned and wasted postage. The village asked the GIS department to come up with a map that would present a solution to the problem.

The versatility of a Geographic Information System (GIS) is usually driven by the user’s request. Although some requests can be more complex than others, it is often times that simple GIS operations help to provide the easiest solutions. For the Village of Morton Grove, IL, the simple, quick and accurate data that the GIS could provide was all that was needed in order to help the Engineering Department complete a survey regarding the selection of the most optimal site for a solar panel installation.

The Village of Lincolnwood has been hard at work trying to secure grants that will help produce bicycle routes and paths throughout the Village. The grant, Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC), is administered through the Regional Transportation Authority. It is federally funded to help people of lower income travel to their places of employment. Providing assistance for this grant application has been the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS). Throughout the process GIS has played an important part by providing maps and analysis. The Village is a member of the GIS Consortium (GISC) which is a Using the GIS Consortiums subscription to Business Analyst Online, the Village compiled necessary statistics for use in the grant. In addition to the statistics, locations of stoplights were mapped out to provide a list for use in field checks. Also, using GIS, the Village was able to verify that manhole covers and inlets along the proposed bike route corridors were of a certain type; openings were not large enough for a bicycle tire to become stuck.

The majority of Municipal Departments use hard copy maps for various daily tasks. Maps are still used considerably to show analysis results, however new advances in technology have provided other ways to dispense and even interact with data.

Since 1994, the Estelle Sieb Center in Norridge has, among other things, held classes and meetings for local communities in law enforcement, fire protection, etc…Typically, these classes can last all day, requiring the attendees to find a place for lunch. In the past, the center would have a few old maps or a village employee would mention a few places in the area. The village wanted to create an updated map that could be distributed to all attendees that would show the locations of restaurants in the village as well as a few near by in Chicago. The village asked the GIS department to put together a map showing up to date restaurant locations.

The Village of Oak Brook contains a wide variety of restaurants. The village posts the list of restaurants and local attractions on their website along with the address and phone number for public use. However, this list is lengthy and contains outdated information. In order to create a more visually appealing and up to date listing, Oak Brook enlisted the help of GIS to create location points, which are then placed in Google Maps. The GIS Department created a map showing the location of each restaurant within the village as well as address information and a link to the restaurant’s website. This interactive map located on the village website allows the user to find restaurants within the village based on location.

Back in the fall of 2009, a village trustee was trying to inform a resident of the businesses available in the village of Wheeling. The trustee was unable to find anything on the internet or the village website in regards to the business. The trustee asked the economic development department to put together an updated business inventory for the new village website. In turn, economic development asked the GIS department to create a series of maps that would accurately display the inventory information.

The Village of Oak Brook contains a number paths and trails including multi-use paths in Fullersburg Woods. The paths run through Central Park and many of the residential subdivisions. They provide residents and visitors the opportunity to stay fit and explore the village. In order to assist residents and visitors the Village hired an outside vendor to create a bike path map showing the location of the various paths throughout the village as well as important places of interest such as the Drake Hotel and Historic Graue Mill.

Garbage collection is an essential service provided by municipal government that, in many communities, has become ingrained in the weekly routine of community residents. While collecting garbage seems like a straight forward process, often there are weeks or months of planning that are necessary to determine pickup locations for a given route that are efficient in both time and resources. Recently, the Village of Winnetka Public Works department decided to reallocate their garbage collection pickup locations to help maximize the efficiency of each truck driver’s route. To assist with this, the Village GIS department provided support during both the planning and implementation stages of the project.

The Village of Riverside Finance Department recently took advantage of GIS (Geographic Information System) in an effort to assess were village stickers had not been purchased nor renewed. Village stickers are required for all vehicles that are registered to a Riverside address and a new sticker is required every year. Sticker fees range from $65 to $95 depending on the type of vehicle.

Understanding the trends of what is happening in the housing market is difficult to do especially if you are not in the realty business. Houses may be sold, rented or even more dramatic, torn down in order to build a new one. In this article we will focus on two parts of the housing market that at times can have a significant impact on a local community, housing demolitions and property foreclosures.

The Elk Grove Village Finance Department recently took advantage of GIS (Geographic Information System) in an effort to assess were village stickers had not been purchased nor renewed. Village stickers are required for all registered or housed vehicles in the village and a new sticker is required every year. Sticker fees range from $20 to $145 depending on the type of vehicle and reduced rates are provided for certain demographics.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have the capacity to perform complex analysis of data to reveal patterns or relationships across a given space. However, the software used to perform these analyses is often thought of only as a tool for generating maps. While creating a visual representation of the data in the form of a map is a major component of GIS, it is not the only way it can be used to assist local governments in completing their everyday tasks. Generating data statistics and other analysis results is also a critical function of a GIS system that can help to consolidate the search for information and reduce the amount of time spent on a project. For the City of Des Plaines, IL these statistics have proven to be a vital asset for everything from gathering basic knowledge of the city systems to compiling reports for various departments.

During the winter holiday seasons, local municipalities often will setup a series of decorations or lighting displays to celebrate the holidays and provide a fun attraction for the community’s residents. While the amount of decorations on display is mainly regulated by a community’ budget, some times these restrictions can come from a lack of existing space or resources for displaying or powering a certain decoration setup. For the Village of Winnetka, IL, this was the case for a business district area located at the northern end of the Village. While many of the businesses and residents in this area wanted to have more lights displayed in the areas numerous trees, there were not sufficient power sources available to accommodate this request. To determine the best solution for this problem, the Public Works and Water and Electric departments used GIS to assist with the planning and mapping of numerous proposed scenarios.

The Village of Glenview is currently applying for a roadway improvement Grant Application for Chestnut Ave (from Lehigh Ave to Waukegan Rd.) In this process, a key component for consideration is the economic impact to the neighboring community of a roadway project, both short term (construction jobs) and long term (improved ability of customers to access stores, productivity increases due to shorter travel times, and possibility for future area redevelopment. ) It is the Village’s responsibility to demonstrate how a project meets this criteria.

The City of Highland Park is a vibrant downtown full of businesses that attract many visitors. Because the downtown contains many buildings, it is often difficult to locate a specific business. The Highland Park Chamber of Commence decided to use business directory to aid people with locating specific businesses. There are four directories located throughout the downtown area. They are similar to Shopping Mall Store Directories in that they list a location of a business and provide a map for referencing that location.

Data comes in all shapes and sizes in a local government. Communities are the keeper of extensive data that pertains to buildings, infrastructure, businesses and the like. It is important for communities to use this data to the fullest extent, and MapOffice provides a way to do so. Data in MapOffice is visible but cannot be extracted into individual features. When other communities or contractors want information, it is necessary to provide a baseline of what is expected during this data transaction.

The Second annual Oak Brook Half Marathon was held on Monday, September 7th. It began at 7:00 am and consisted of a 13 mile course starting and ending at Kensington Court. The course took participants through Fullersburg Woods and around the McDonald's campus. In previous years, the Village had used an outside vendor to produce maps of the course. The maps while informative, did not contain information on the path's condition or registration information.

Planimetric data are geographic features captured during a photogrammetric (airplane fight) mapping process that are flat and without elevation information to depict the terrain. Such features include bridges, roadways, building footprints, bodies of water, and railroad lines. Photogrammetry is the most cost-effective method for producing this type of mapping information for large areas and these features typically represent the base data in a map.

The City of Highland Parks runs the Taste of Highland in conjunction with the Port Clinton Art Festival. The Taste of Highland provides an opportunity for local food related establishments to sell food products and allow people to taste their food products. Thus, it is an excellent opportunity for vendors to gain exposure to potential new customers. Both events are important annual events in the greater Chicago area. These events attract hundreds of thousands of people and thus need to be well planned to ensure everyone remains safe, while enjoying themselves at the Taste of Highland Park Event.

Every year the Village of Norridge requires its resident’s to purchase a sticker (permit) for each owned vehicle. This sticker allows the resident to park on village streets without receiving a fine. The village keeps track of each sticker purchased each year and requested that the GIS department map out each address and find which households had not purchased a sticker for 2009.

More often than not a local community has a need to notify their residents when a large event is about to occur. Whether it is a fourth of July fireworks display or a street closing for a street festival, residents deserve to know when something is going to affect them and the neighborhood around them. For the Village of Morton Grove, IL the act of notifying residents has been practiced in many ways but it was not until the implementation of the Geographic Information System (GIS) that a simpler method came to fruition.