Urban Studies - Research Guide: Maps & Government Documents

Fulltext reports and data from Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Offers fulltext searching across its whole collection of municipal codes, with geographic filters. Includes Philadelphia.

aka General Code.
GeneralCode.com is the front-end for eCode360, linking to individual cities' administrative codes on the eCode360 website. There's no free way to search across cities.

hosted by CivicPlus.

This database is the successor to ICUD Online, an online collection of fulltext US municipal and county government documents gathered from local government organizations and other sources. It is not comprehensive; its coverage generally starts ~2000.

The print ICUD indexes US municipal and county government documents, 1960s-2000. Assembled through contributions from municipal public libraries, it is wonderful and rich resource for all topics municipal. The microfiche set provides page images for most of ICUD's coverage.
To use ICUD and the fiche, work with ICUD in Van Pelt Reference or Fine Arts. Record the ID numbers for specific documents, and use the Franklin Catalog fiche record's "Scan & Deliver" service for the document, including its ID number - one request per document.

83 neighborhood planning surveys prepared and published by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission between 1946 and 1990. These reports contain descriptions of current conditions of housing stock; population trends; property turnover; public transportation; community activity. Recommendations are made for future action.

Digitized Sanborn map sheets from the Library of Congress's comprehensive collection, 35,000+ images in full color.

This database was deactivated in Summer 2020.
Digitized Sanborn fire insurance maps for selected major US cities, including Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Richmond, and Seattle. Downloadable images available as GeoTIFF suitable for GIS applications.

Digitized from microfilm, these present multiple versions of the Sanborn fire insurance maps for Pennsylvania municipalities over time. Not available in GeoTIFF format.

For Pennsylvania towns, in beautiful full color.

Includes Austin, Houston, Dallas.

For cities not in ProQuest Geo Edition, maps on microfilm can be requested from CRL via Interlibrary Loan.

Digitized historic maps from libraries and cultural institutions around Philadelphia, including the Free Library's map collection.

Council of Social Agencies and the Philadelphia Board of Education, 1939.
Digitized atlas of Philadelphia city blocks showing building outlines for social-use sites.

Historic maps digitized at the Library of Congress.

A collection of history maps digitized at UT-Austin.

Huge collection of historic maps viewable online.