Foursquare, Mayor Emanuel Promote Chicago Check-Ins with Windy City Badge

In Chicago, 250,000 different users have checked-in to 80,000 different venues 10,000,000 times using Foursquare. With those stats, it’s one of the most Foursquare-loving cities in the world. That’s why Foursquare teamed up with the Mayor’s office to launch a new city-specific badge that users can unlock by checking-in locally.

There are plenty of achievements on Foursquare, known as “badges,” that are city-specific. For instance, there’s one for checking-in above a certain street number in New York City and there are badges for specific events that taken place in certain cities like SXSW. The new Windy City Badge is the first badge that really promotes checking-in around an entire city.

Users can unlock the badge by visiting 5 of the 21 places on the list. The places on the list are all local attractions or small businesses that are historically significant or popular around Chicago. The list includes “Dat Old Fashioned Donut” Donut Shop, The Oriental Institute Museum, The Garfield Park Conservatory and the 63rd Street Beach.

Of course, the badge serves as a motivation to get people to visit local establishments. It aims to help people explore the city and find some of its best local venues.

As part of this launch, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined Foursquare as “Chicago’s Mayor.” He currently has over 1,000 followers on the service, and says that he will be checking-in to locations all over Chicago to help promote the new Windy City Badge.

Cities everywhere could benefit from this kind of specialization in the future. Like the Windy City Badge, other badges can be based off the new Foursquare Lists feature. This could promote local businesses and attractions by harnessing the power of the achievement. Everyone loves to win something – and badges like this can serve as an incentive to visit locales in the same way holding down a Mayorship does.

Would you like to see special Foursquare badges for your city? Let us know in the comments.