Serving UIC's Great Cities Commitment: Solutions for Today's Urban Challenges

For twenty-three years, Dr. Timothy Johnson served as the Director of the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago (1996-2019).  We are so thrilled that Dr. Johnson is now part of the team at the Great Cities Institute as a Senior Fellow and Research Specialist.  Tim’s presence greatly enhances our expertise in developing questionnaires and collecting and analyzing survey data. Dr. Johnson is known worldwide among survey researchers and is recognized as one of the top survey researchers in the country.

In 2023, Tim received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research. “The award is given for an outstanding contribution to the field of public opinion research, including advances in theory, empirical research and methods; improvements in ethical standards; and promotion of understanding among the public, media and/or policymakers.”  When presenting this very prestigious award, Tim’s contributions were noted:

Timothy P. Johnson’s leadership, scholarship, mentorship, and advocacy have enriched public opinion and survey research for over 35 years.  His substantive and methodological contributions, his promotion and enhancement of research standards, and his advocacy for the importance of survey research, are each remarkable in their own right.  Collectively, they have profoundly enhanced our entire field.

An enormously productive scholar, Tim’s impactful publications, including seven edited volumes and hundreds of refereed articles and book chapters, have advanced the science of survey measurement, improved representation of hard-to-count populations and produced innovations in cross-cultural methodology. Moreover, his ground-breaking applications of survey data to the study of health behavior, health care, substance abuse and mental health have reflected his commitment to using social science to promote the common good, particularly the health and well-being of underserved populations.

Tim’s generosity to both students and colleagues is legendary.  Through decades of teaching and serving on over 80 dissertation committees at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he has developed the methodological finesse of a whole generation of researchers.  He has also answered countless calls to serve on advisory, review, organizing and service committees across a wide range of academic and professional institutions.

Tim’s executive leadership service across our profession is almost unparalleled, including the presidencies of AAPOR, WAPOR, MAPOR, and AASRO.  Across these organizations, he tirelessly protected our professional interests through advocacy for the importance of polls and surveys for informed decision-making and combating misinformation, as well as promoting establishment of and adherence to strong research standards.  His leadership in AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, including development of requirements, training, and outreach plans, and overall implementation of its vision, were essential to its success.

For all his extraordinary achievements and contributions, the American Association for Public Opinion Research is pleased to present the 2023 Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement to Dr. Timothy P. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson first came to UIC in 1989 and in addition to his duties as Director of the Survey Research lab, taught courses in survey methodology and data analysis and has sat on countless professional boards and committees. Tim served as President (2017-18) of the American Association for Public Opinion Research; President (2016-18) of the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations; President (2010-11) of the Midwest Association of Public Opinion Research; and President (2021-22) of the World Association for Public Opinion Research; and is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Tim is also a Senior Fellow with NORC at the University of Chicago and Professor Emeritus at UIC. Tim’s research focuses on science policy, sources of survey error, and the social epidemiology of health behaviors.

Since he retired from UIC, Tim has also focused on the public perceptions of science in general and survey research in particular. Funding for his research has come from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation. The son of World War II veterans (his mother was a nurse), Tim was raised in western New York. He earned a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1988 from the University of Kentucky and coordinated research at the Survey Research Center there for six years.

Tim is one of our very favorite people and we are so excited that we will get to spend more time with him. Please join us in welcoming Tim Johnson to the Great Cities team.

Fighting against gentrification and for neighborhood empowerment were just two of the issues that occupied the attention of José “Cha Cha” Jimenez, founder and chairman of the Young Lords. Cha Cha was born on August 8, 1948, and lived until January 10, 2025. Today, January 16th, his family laid him to rest.

We express our condolences to his family and close friends and celebrate his life by sharing with you an interview that we did of Cha Cha on August 28, 2018, after our event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic Convention.

In this interview, you can hear Cha Cha talk about the formation of the Young Lords and how it shifted from a street gang to a political organization and social movement. You can also hear him describe many issues they tackled and the alliances that they formed.

Feel free to check out the video of the full event as well as interviews of other participants in the panel discussion that we held on 2018, including Billy “Che” Brooks, Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Mary Scot-Boria, and Don Rose.

Cha Cha, you left your mark on history and we thank you.

The Great Cities Institute (GCI) is proud to release its updated Chicago Community Area Hardship Index, incorporating newly available data from the 2019-2023 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates. This update continues GCI’s commitment to tracking and visualizing socioeconomic hardship across Chicago’s 77 community areas.

The Hardship Index combines six key socioeconomic indicators—unemployment, education, per capita income, poverty, crowded housing, and dependency ratio—to quantify economic challenges across the city’s 77 community areas. These indicators, standardized on a 0 to 100 scale, paint a vivid picture of where Chicago’s most pressing hardships lie.

Since its introduction in 2016, GCI’s Chicago Community Area Hardship Index has served as a valuable tool for policymakers, journalists, and organizations addressing Chicago’s most pressing challenges. Notably, it has been used:

For the latest update, GCI is releasing the Hardship Index as an interactive online map, accompanied by the data that underpin the calculations.

These indicators were first applied to Chicago’s community areas in 2016 by Matt E. Sweeney and Matthew D. Wilson, adapting the methodology from the “Intercity Hardship Index” developed in 1976 by Richard P. Nathan and Charles F. Adams, Jr.

Key Findings from the 2019-2023 Update
The updated findings highlight a clear spatial clustering of hardship across Chicago:

The median hardship score for Chicago’s community areas is 43.9, represented by the Lower West Side.

As with all the data, reports, and analysis we release, we hope this can be of use to policy makers, government agencies, foundations and service organizations in determining resource allocation.

Also explore the interactive map and access the data here.