Results

CNT offers 19 unique tours that employ more than 50 community and site guides. They support nearly as many community artists by providing them with additional exposure and income, and contribute to local economies through restaurant and gift-shop sales.

Local businesses reap long-term economic improvements. Statistics show that as many as 12 percent of CNT guests return to shop at neighborhood stores later. To increase the likelihood of repeat visitors, CNT provides each guest with driving and public transportation directions to the neighborhood and also gives the addresses for the stops along the tour.

A full 83 percent of CNT guests live in or near Chicago. The tours offer a comfortable way for area residents to explore and embrace cultures they may not have previously understood; to tread in unfamiliar territory they mi`ght otherwise have avoided. Guest surveys indicate a 92 percent approval rating based on the quality of the tours and guides. These end surveys speak to some positive shifts in perceptions about the communities.

The people at Sears were so pleased with the work that CNT is doing, they extended their original grant another year, bestowing an additional $50,000 in 2000 on top of the $200,000 provided between 1997 to 1999. Conversely, the tours build community pride. “Some communities don’t think they have anything to share,” Villasenor explains. “But once we sit down with guides to help them train and research their neighborhoods, they realize the wealth of history and lore they have and the importance of not losing it.” Adds Commissioner Weisberg, “Commercial tour operators weren’t really interested in getting off their regular routes and venturing into the local communities. They didn’t feel any sense of connection to the neighborhoods. But locals who have deep ties to their communities were not only willing but eager to participate in this venture, and so became our tour guides and ambassadors for their neighborhoods.”

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