Pushbuild
Property & housing

How many demolition permits does Chicago issue a year? Half as many as in 2015

Published 2026-11-07 · By Pushbuild · Data: Building Permits API – City Permits, Valuations and Contractors

Chicago issued 1,210 demolition permits in 2015 and 661 in 2025. Los Angeles issues far more: 1,871 in 2025.

04358701,30520152016201720182019202020212022202320242025661
YearChicagoLos Angeles
20151,210
20161,305
20171,212
20181,144
20191,081
20207381,630
20218881,866
20227852,320
20236151,812
20246351,788
20256611,871

Caveats

Permits typed or classed as demolition. Los Angeles data starts in 2020.

Sources

Data as of 2026-11-07. Every figure in this post is in the table above and the CSV below.

Download the data behind this post: b1-demolition-permits-by-year.csv

Get this data

Every number in this post comes from the Building Permits API – City Permits, Valuations and Contractors. $0.0008 per row returned; every key gets $1 of free usage each month.

curl -X POST https://api.pushbuild.com/building-permits/run \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jurisdictions": ["seattle"], "description": "solar", "maxItems": 20}'
API docs and keyMore analysis from this data
Embed this chart

Free to reuse with the credit link. Paste this HTML into your page, or use the SVG file.

Want a table like this in Google Sheets, refreshed on demand? Free script: copy a web table into Google Sheets.

Related analysis

Header photo: Baltimore Heritage from Baltimore, MD, USA, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Want this data inside your own app or CRM? API integrations and data sync