Storefront vitality: business licenses & churn
Every storefront needs a City business license, so the license roll is a live map of where commerce is — and where it’s moving. The Loop packs the most licenses per parcel, but over the last year it also shed the most on net. Search your address or click any community area, filter by category, and switch to net churn to see which corridors are growing and which are thinning out.
How to read this map
Active licenses counts the City business licenses that are currently in force in a community area, per 1,000 parcels, and can be filtered by category — food & drink, retail & general, services, or other/specialized. Categories come from the license type; “retail & general” includes the City’s general-purpose Limited Business License, which most small shops hold. The ramp is neutral — this is a level of activity, not a verdict.
Net churnis the trailing year’s new licenses minus its closures, per 1,000 parcels. A business is one license lineage across its renewals; an open is a lineage first issued in the year, and a closeis a lineage whose last license expired and wasn’t renewed within a 90-day grace (so a late renewal isn’t mistaken for a closure). Use the “vs citywide” toggle to separate growing corridors from declining ones; citywide, closures modestly outpaced openings over the trailing year.
Licenses are placed by the City’s own community-area field; about 8% carry no area and are not mapped. Source: City of Chicago Business Licenses. See methodology for the category map and the churn definitions.