A social historian with a national profile, he is also a broadcaster, newspaper columnist, public speaker, writer, and campaigner for the rights of working-class people. Professor Chinn is the author of 28 books that include studies of working-class housing, urban working class life, working-class womens lives, manufacturing, Birmingham, the Black Country, and ethnic minorities. He has appeared as an expert on various television programmes, including Channel 4s History Hunters with Tony Robinson and BBC 4s Edwardian Larder.

In the Midlands he is a long-running columnist on local history for the Express and Star and the Birmingham Mail; he has a weekly local history show on BBC WM and regular history slots on BBC Midlands Today; and he is the expert on ITVs The Way We Were series. Professor Chinn has appeared on numerous Radio 4 programmes, including those presented by Libby Purvess and Laurie Taylor, and has recently presented Centre of Our World, looking at various ethnic minorities in Birmingham. Professor Chinns broadcasting and writing on housing, working-class life, poverty, women and ethnic minorities is deeply affected by his familys working-class background and life in the back-to-backs of Birmingham. This affinity led him to take a prominent role in the campaign to save the last back to backs in Birmingham and turn them into a National Trust Museum.

Professor Chinn also featured strongly in the fight to ensure the re-opening of Birminghams Town Hall, whilst he has been an active supporter of the Birmingham St Patricks Parade and is chairman of the Birmingham St Georges Day Association, which has led the way in celebrating England and Englishness in a positive and embracing way. An ardent supporter of manufacturing, Professor Chinn was a key figure in the battle to keep the Longbridge car factory open in 2001 and has since been supported the struggle for jobs at Chubb, Alstom, HP Sauce, and Smith and Nephew.

In 2001 he was awarded the MBE for his services to local history and to local charities. Carl is married to Kay, who is from Dublin, and they have four children, aged from 28 to twelve. His family has lived in Birmingham since the 1790s and he himself lives less than half a mile from where his great, great, great grandfather lived in the 1840s.