Local coverage
Project conversations across Champaign County.
Coverage depends on independent provider availability. Each page below explains useful housing and site context for that community.
Urbana
Urbana's worst disaster wasn't water: an 1871 fire, breaking out one day after the great Chicago and Peshtigo, Wisconsin fires, destroyed much of the young city and forced a rebuilding wave that produced most of its historic core.
Local planning notes →Savoy
Savoy more than doubled in population between 2000 and 2024, the fastest growth of any Champaign County municipality, building out largely on the county's historically poorly-drained black prairie soil.
Local planning notes →Mahomet
Mahomet's entire founding story is about water: settlers platted the village in 1832 specifically for the Sangamon River's water and timber, right at the river's headwaters.
Local planning notes →Rantoul
Chanute Field trained Air Service recruits from 1917 until the base closed in 1993, and Rantoul's construction followed that mission's needs for 76 years before civilian redevelopment began adding yet another building generation on former base land.
Local planning notes →St. Joseph
St.
Local planning notes →Tolono
Tolono grew up at an 1856 railroad crossing rather than along a river, incorporating in 1865 with a population largely tied to the rail lines.
Local planning notes →Monticello
Monticello became Piatt County's seat in 1841, and its wealthiest legacy, Allerton Park, was built on farmland the Allerton family developed into an estate later gifted to the University of Illinois in 1946.
Local planning notes →Villa Grove
The Frisco railroad rebuilt Villa Grove after 1902 specifically because the Embarras River offered the water supply a division point needed, platting an entirely new townsite with repair shops on 260 purchased acres.
Local planning notes →