Chicago's CSA will expand geographically at some point.

I could see Rockford coming into Chicago CSA. tons of cross regional employment & commuting.

More curious about the potential of Berrien County, MI which includes Benton Harbor and New Buffalo. The western Michigan shore is dominated by Chicagoans during the summer months, New Buffalo condo ownership by Illinoisan's has to be 40%. New Buffalo & Niles have 4 outbound and 3 inbound daily Amtrak trains, Benton Harbor has another 2. Berrian County abuts LaPorte County which is in Chicago CSA. There is a casino on both sides of the state line. Four Winds in New Buffalo and Blue Chip in Michigan City. Must be alot of cross employment and dollars spent. Both casinos market heavily on Chicago media and no doubt get a high percentage of overnight guest from Chicagoland.

Berrien County is part of Niles/Benton Harbor MSA which is part of South Bend CSA.

That is the real potential merger. South Bend has 7 daily roundtrips on the South Shore commuter and plans more with double track expansion under way. Amtrak makes 2 inbound 2 outbound stops in South Bend and Elkhart. South Bend Airport has more arrivals/departures to Chicago than any other city - 8 total, next is Atlanta with 6. Chicago's Notre Dame Alumni Club claims more than 20,000 members, 2nd largest alumni base and Chicagoland sent the 2nd largest 2018 freshman entering class-after NY. Notre Dame offers and Executive MBA in DT Chicago. ST Joe County also abuts LaPort County(Chicago CSA)so other cross regional economic activity should be high.

This is more observational than statistical. I would be interested in a county level look at the economic dependencies of Berrien county and South Bend.

WGN already includes Benton Harbor on their weather map, that's all the evidence I need (Note: they also show Rockford).

https://i.imgur.com/dtRNPuF.jpg

Chicago's MSA and CSA include Kenosha Co. Racine could and should be added in the CSA rather soon IMO. Esp when the gigantic Foxconn plant is up and running. There will be a lot of employees from Illinois trust me. That said there are way more people that commute to Illinois than the other way. The site is on every southern end of Racine County bordering Kenosha co. One day I do believe Milwaukee can be added to the CSA at some point. It will likely need more trains to do it. Metra is one way, just take it all the way to downtown Milwaukee and a stop at Mitchel Airport and a stop in Racine before the Kenosha stop. But as long as Wisconsin has a republican governor don't expect that plan to happen any time soon.

Here is the map of the current MSA. Racine is pretty close, closer than some Indiana ones.

http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/c..._map-thumb.PNG

Kenosha is a pretty narrow county. the City of Racine is 18 miles to the Illinois boarder. The Foxconn plant literally boarders Kenosha county.

https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.town...3023.image.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...-9PmHk6QmY10LA


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racine_County,_Wisconsin

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...County.svg.png

Interestingly the Milwaukee MSA does not include Racine county. But its CSA does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwau...ropolitan_area

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...litan_Area.png

The Milwaukee CSA is greater than two million people. 2,048,007. 2014 est. Its more populous now.

More official proof of the Berrien County and South Bend ties to Chicago.
NFL Team fan base: Bears are fan favorite in Berrien & Niles MI as well as St Joe IN. 2014 stillshows Rams in STL, but their move to LA will only increase Bears pawprint in So Ill. and would have no effect in NWI, SWM.
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/s...-shows-_1.jpeg

MLB Team fan base: Cubs clearly dominate northern half of Indiana AND Berrien County MI.
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/s...l%201%20BB.jpg

And Notre Dame is Chicagolands favorite NCAA Football team
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/s...nois/NCAA.jpeg

I guess I don’t really know how much I care about this whole CSA thing. On some level, I don’t like the idea of not being a part of the top three. But it doesn’t really bother me as much as I thought. I sort of feel like it’s an antiquated way of looking at the country. When I was growing up in the 1980’s, there were several big cities. But it felt like NY, LA, and Chicago were clearly dominate. Other cities just didn’t really seem to have the same level of gravitas.

I think the country is different now. There are several “major” US cities and metro areas. And I wouldn’t say one having a larger population makes it necessarily climb to a higher degree of civic pedigree. But maybe that’s just my own perception. And I’m not saying that to lessen the blow or anything. It’s an inevitability that we’re not going to be the top 3 for much longer in CSA, MSA, and city population. Each of those will fall in my personal lifetime.

But that being said, it’s hard to argue that Chicago isn’t evolving into a much better city (crime in bad neighborhoods aside) than the one I grew up in. We’re evolving into a really cool, more highly educated, more urban version of ourselves. And if anything, our pull and significance will continue to increase. Next Detroit, we are not.

So quit worrying about which stupid little towns we can drag into our CSA. If you still want bragging rights, MSA is probably more important anyway. That’s what a google search directs you to. But remember. That too will someday be overtaken. So be more concerned with where our city is heading. We have some headwinds to be sure, but it’s undeniable that Chicago is heading in the right direction, and will remain one of the most important cities in the US until all of us exit god’s green earth.

^ To be sure, Im am just having fun with the maps. I find it interesting to see fan bases and other economic influences. SSP Chicago thread in general is hyper focused on center city with a bullseye. I get it- but it is fun to look at the ripple of the City's influence.

I don't think it's about bragging rights, it's a very real discussion about how the built environment is changing. When I was a kid I-94 was 2 lanes each way between Chicago and Milwaukee. Now it's an outright monster superhighway drag strip (and getting moreso now that they are eliminating the last 3 lane sections). When I started going to school in Chicago, that entire stretch was farm fields, 12 years later is almost entirely industrial warehouses including some of the largest around. It's an extremely interesting thing to watch happen in real time over the years. Two large cities are slowly merging and it's only a matter of time before it's non-stop urbanized area from Ozaukee County to Michigan.

I actually know people who own much of the remaining farm land around the Foxconn and Amazon plants (literally picked up like 250 acres dirt cheap in the recession as part of a foreclosed portfolio that included some juicy properties in Chicago, talk about lucky) and they plan medium density mixed use redevelopment on every last acre once the plant opens. It hasn't settled in for most people yet that once you inject tens of thousands more workers into that corridor it's basically going to be denser than Chicago's Northern suburbs and it's going to happen almost overnight.

I had a friend from NYC refer to the West Loop as a "less douchey Meatpacking District". To Chicagoans, West Loop is considered probably the second douchey-est place behind Wrigleyville.

The similarities to Chelsea might be driving some of that investment.

I have some skepticism about the true employment size and impact of Foxconn when all is said and done. I fell similarly about Amazon's "50,000 jobs" claim.

Absolutely, and that's how I describe West Loop to people here. It's like meatpacking was before is just as it was becoming douchey. Nyc investors definitely see this..I think I read an interview with an investor who said it. In 5 to 10 years it'll be full on River North. It'll be interesting after that to see what the next big area will be.

Also, maybe 3rd douchiest. River North is worse :) But in 5 years time....they'll be the same.

I really don't know where the "douchey" areas are because I never experience Chicago's nightlife any more. I can't make it past 11:30 pm and I'm usually on my couch watching Netflix by that time anyhow.

But wherever the nightclubs are most concentrated is almost certainly always gonna be "douche" central. That's a timeless phenomenon.

Why would you wait 4 hours for a table? Jeez. I have a hard time justifying 45 minutes.

We didn't. We went somewhere else, of course.

I was hoping that, with a 4:30 pm arrival, there wouldn't be that much of a wait

I think Foxconn will probably take WI for a ride, but Chicago and Milwaukee will merge soon enough. I don't think many people will commute from downtown Milwaukee to downtown Chicago daily, but there will be a lot of overlap along the fringe of the two metros. Even then, I'd have a hard time saying Chicago and Milwaukee are one in the same. Maybe a part of the same cluster, but not the same city. The merger would do nothing but pad the stats. I agree HSR or even Metra service would be great though.

I agree with everything you said other than Foxconn.

The thing is truly enormous. And Wisconsin may have overpaid for it. But it is going to happen.




one min video in link below.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/money...us/1524759002/

Up-close view of Foxconn site shows massive project coming into focus

Rick Romell, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published 5:04 p.m. CT Oct. 4, 2018 | Updated 6:34 p.m. CT Oct. 6, 2018


With construction now a few months old, the huge scope of the Foxconn project is coming into sharper focus — hundreds of workers on site, a dump truck coming or going every 12 seconds in the middle of the day and a 2- to 3-foot-thick base of aggregate being laid to support a complex of buildings more than a third of a mile long.
"It's a massive, massive footprint," Adam Jelen, senior vice president with Gilbane Building Co., said as he stood atop a 30-foot mound of topsoil overlooking a construction site crawling with dump trucks hauling in gravel and studded with some 150 pieces of excavation equipment, most of it idle for the moment because of recent rains.
"I think it's hard for folks to wrap their arms around the scale," Jelen said.
Gilbane and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. offered reporters an up-close look Thursday at the site, where Foxconn Technology Group plans a $10 billion manufacturing and research complex producing high-definition display panel....





https://fox6now.com/2018/10/06/foxco...oss-wisconsin/

Foxconn schedules 5 hiring fairs in a month

MILWAUKEE — Foxconn Technology Group says it will be holding five hiring fairs to recruit job candidates over the next month.
The Taiwan-based electronics company is building a $10 billion manufacturing and research complex in Mount Pleasant and could employ as many as 13,000 people
…

The company is seeking people to fill jobs in areas including human resources, software engineering, finance, accounting, graphics and interior design, construction management, and sales and marketing.

Even if Foxconn creates a massive population of workers and we see all of this development, I shudder a bit.

We’ve seen this all before. Look at industrial towns like Waukegan or Gary. What happens when Foxconn decides that it wants to shrink its workforce, or worse, shut down?

All that beautiful farmland is now decaying slums.

Racine County will need a more diversified economy, and not to be too dependent on Foxconn, in order for this boom to truly be lasting.

Got it

Pretty much anywhere that's a meat market is my opinion. I don't think West Loop is totally douchey but it definitely exists. For these areas though...River North, Wrigleyville, Division St, parts of South Loop, West Loop, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, etc immediately come to mind.

It was not going to remain farmland forever Foxconn or not. I 94 is now a major connection to both airports.
O’Hare being the most important one. It’s the main artery that connects both metros currently.

Better not build the massive 750 acre high tech factory because someday it might close!


God if the people who built Chicago thought that way we'd all still be sitting in wigwams eating wild onions...