I found some useful info about the distribution of jobs in Chicagoland in this
CMAP Document. It really doesn’t seem like there's a single suburb that competes, but overall they do have an effect. I suppose that could be an elegant solution. The one downside is that most of the South Suburbs are left out of this dispersed distribution of jobs.
It actually makes me think that the One Central development could be a boon to the South Side, but we need much more than that especially for the price tag. That money could instead be used to transition our industrial areas into green energy/tech hubs.