Chicago Public Media began rolling out Chicago.com in Avondale on October 7, with Bronzeville scheduled to follow a day later. The five pilot communities are Evanston, Avondale, Bronzeville, South Shore and an Edgewater-area pilot identified as Edgewater/Andersonville by the Evanston RoundTable; LatAm Journalism Review refers to that pilot as Edgewater. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Evanston is scheduled to launch October 12 and South Shore the following day.
The pilot is designed for neighborhood information and connection, not as a replacement for reporting. Residents can use a discussion feed, an event calendar and a weekly newsletter curated by a paid community steward. The Evanston RoundTable also reports that the site includes resident-created guides, practical how-to material and a dashboard collecting journalism from outlets including WBEZ, the Sun-Times, La Raza and the Windy City Times. The phased rollout gives Chicago Public Media and its partners a chance to learn from each opening and adjust the service, according to Public Media Alliance.
A local-information problem, and an open question
The need Chicago.com aims to address has been documented in local research, though that research does not show whether residents will use this platform. A survey of more than 1,000 Chicago residents found that 37% had trouble finding information about their own neighborhoods, compared with 27% who said accessing national news was difficult, Current reported. A separate 2025 Medill Local News Initiative survey found that 30% of Chicago-area respondents consumed local news daily from content creators, compared with 18% who relied on local newspapers. That measured news habits, not interest in or use of Chicago.com, Medill reported.
Access is another consideration, but available county-level figures are old and do not describe current differences among Chicago neighborhoods. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013–2017 American Community Survey reported household broadband subscriptions in 77% of Cook County households, compared with 92% in nearby Kendall County. Those figures measure household subscriptions, not device access or present-day neighborhood conditions, the Census Bureau said.
A precedent, not a forecast
Chicago Public Media developed the project with Roundabout, a nonprofit technology effort created by New_Public. Roundabout had tested similar digital-community approaches in Southeast Portland, Oregon, and Richmond, Virginia, according to Inside Radio. Another point of comparison is Vermont’s separate Front Porch Forum: its 2019 annual benefit corporation report counted 176,000 members among the state’s 260,000 households. That history offers an example of a neighborhood-focused service, not evidence of how many Chicagoans will join Chicago.com, according to the report.
Chicago Public Media has said it plans to adapt the minimum viable product based on how residents use it, as Editor & Publisher reported. The pilot’s early test is therefore not simply whether the site attracts sign-ups, but whether residents find it useful for neighborhood information and connection. The available survey and broadband figures provide context; they do not yet establish the platform’s reach, accessibility or effectiveness.
