Chicago Crime.org is a simple but groundbreaking site that monitors criminal activity at the street level in Chicago. Site visitors can browse the website by neighborhood, police district, ward, ZIP code as well as the entire city. Certain patterns of criminal activity are easily visible by viewing the crime data through the map based functionality, though many users may find the RSS text feed just as helpful. Chicagocrime.org uses Google Maps in combination with data from the city’s website Citizen ICAM, a browsable database of crimes that have been reported through the Chicapo Police Department. The design and execution of the site is brilliant for its simplicity and ease of use.
