CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[Steely Dan]

^ the reports of Chicago's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Originally Posted by marothisu

You mean when they shut down for a few days/week or your kid gets a fever and they can't return until they're 24 hours fever free without medicine? We had a nanny for a few months and then day care comes around and we're like "oh hey we can save over $1000/mo now. Nice". One day he got sick for 3-4 days and boom. My company allows for last minute day care but only a certain amount per year.

By "double damage" daycare I meant having two little ones in full-time daycare at the same time.

My son and daughter are only 18 months apart in age, so we were sucked into that financial black hole for about 4 years.

Thankfully, they're both in regular school now.

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I consumed the 2023 INC 5000 by city, metro, etc. Their page has a number of errors that I had to correct, but still a small percentage of the 5000 overall. The INC 5000 is the 5000 fastest growing companies in America. Here's the number by city proper:

1. NYC: 212 companies
2. Chicago: 118
3. Atlanta: 111
4. Austin: 107
5. Dallas: 82
6. Los Angeles: 80
7. San Francisco: 70
8T. Houston: 63
8T. Miami: 63
10. San Diego: 52
11. Denver: 50
12. Boston: 43
13. Tampa: 41
14. Phoenix: 38
15. Scottsdale, AZ: 36
16T. Charlotte: 34
16T. Irvine, CA: 34
18. Washington DC: 33
19. Seattle: 29
20. Arlington, VA: 28
21. Omaha: 27
22T. Minneapolis: 26
22T. Nashville: 26
24T. Indianapolis: 25
24T. Raleigh, NC: 25
26T. Plano, TX: 24
26T. Reston, VA: 24
28. Portland: 23
29T. Alpharetta, GA: 22
29T. Boca Raton, FL: 22
29T. Las Vegas: 22
29T. Orlando: 22
33T. Huntsville, AL: 21
33T. McLean, VA: 21
35. Chattanooga, TN: 20
36T. Clearwater, FL: 19
36T. Lehi, UT: 19
36T. Philadelphia: 19
36T. San Antonio: 19
40T. Fort Lauderdale, FL: 18
40T. Grand Rapids, MI: 18
40T. Irving, TX: 18
40T. Richmond, VA: 18
40T. San Jose: 18
45T. Cincinnati: 17
45T. Columbus, OH: 17
45T. Jacksonville: 17
45T. St. Louis: 17
45T. Wilmington, DE: 17
45T. Vienna, VA: 17

Look at Grand Rapids punching above its weight with Cincy San Jose and San Antonio

[twister244]

Wow, Really happy to see Chicago number two on this list! Also, damn Atlanta!

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by twister244

Wow, Really happy to see Chicago number two on this list! Also, damn Atlanta!

And Alpharetta is tied with Vegas and Orlando, pretty impressive. Arlington and Mclean Virginia also probably belong with DC, making their ranking significantly better.

[marothisu]

As far as I remember, Chicago has always done well in this. Despite what the naysayers have to say, Chicago continues to be a good place for business and these types of data points still show that. I have to put together final MSA numbers but I think Chicago MSA is 4th or 5th behind NYC, LA, and DC areas....and maybe Atlanta (have to look). Preliminary when I looked Chicago was slightly above Dallas and Miami areas and pretty far above Boston, Houston, and SF...and way further ahead of places like Seattle area.

[DetroitMan]

This will be a major boost for Kankakee and the far south suburbs of Chicago.

Illinois closes in on $2 billion EV battery plant

After years of public and private maneuvering, Illinois finally is close to reeling in a big electric vehicle battery manufacturer.

A crucial step came on Tuesday when, according to local officials, the Kankakee County Board approved a property tax abatement needed to lure a battery maker to a 160-acre site in Manteno, a village about 50 miles southwest of the Loop.

Officials declined to name the company, but sources close to the situation believe it to be Gotion, a Chinese battery maker that last year announced plans for a factory in Michigan.

Manteno Mayor Tim Nugent said his board and other local taxing bodies approved the abatement earlier this month, after being told by the state and a company agent that the facility will create 2,600 jobs and involve more than $2 billion in investment.

No final decision has been made but, “I’m told we’re on the short list,” Nugent said. “I’m hopeful.”

Gotion had been planning to build a battery pack assembly plant to be supplied by the battery parts plant in Michigan. Gotion NA executive Chuck Thelen told Crain's Detroit in a recent interview that the company was zeroing in on a site in the U.S. for the second plan and that it wasn't in Michigan.

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/techno...-plant-manteno

[Kngkyle]

I'll withhold judgement until we know how much taxpayer money is going to subsidize this...

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

I'll withhold judgement until we know how much taxpayer money is going to subsidize this...

This is a situation where I think subsidies are worth it. Illinois is an important auto manufacturing state. Autos are America's biggest retail AND manufacturing sector. Auto manufacturing is changing fast and it's important to make sure Illinois has the foundation to be part of that network. Once the locations, talent, facilities and infrastructure is in place and forms a network, it's hard to displace. Those networks are forming now and we don't want to miss out, as they will be important for decades and might be important for landing whatever comes next too.

In this circumstance, paying $80,000 per job might seem profligate. But in the best case it's a foundation and not like paying to get a big warehouse or canning facility or something.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Sometime I'll look at it by CA but it is pretty interesting. We have a kid between 1 and 2 and day care was a shit show on the north side. Most places you have to put your name in before the kid is even born to have a chance. Some people put in when they find out they're pregnant. The first place we put on a wait list, we did it while my wife was still pregnant and we'd JUST be getting in next month. We ended up winning a lottery for a well known school but they barely had any openings. We see a LOT of young kids under 2 or 3 years old around the parks in our area of Lincoln Park. We also met a large handful of families with kids move here recently from NYC or SF around here through my wife's Chinese Lincoln Park network. I'm not sure if this population is increasing in some areas or it's just that I never paid attention to this stuff before.

My wife and I got so stinking lucky with where we moved. Mayfair is a little paradise hamlet within the city for families. We sent our son (born 30 days into lockdown) to a home daycare as soon as they reopened after the pandemic. It's literally on the otherside of the block from us. We've walked him there 95 out of 100 days. Unless it's pouring rain or below zero, we walk. Now he just started 3K at the Catholic School three or four blocks from us and our 1 year old girl took his slot at daycare. We are having a hard time adjusting to the 15 minute round trip walk in the morning instead of the 5 minutes it used to take for just him.

We are two blocks from the L, three blocks from the Metra, one block from a nice park, less than a block from daycare, less than 4 blocks from a grade school, the Irish Heritage Center is around the block and has tons of programming and a pub... Oh and not a single one of these places requires crossing an arterial or semi arterial street. We are 3/4 of a mile from the North Branch Trail and forest preserve, actually tossing the kids in the Burley tomorrow first thing AM to take them up the trail to Joe Donut in Niles which is about 40 min by bike from here. Neighborhoods like this are what make this city great.

Also, on second thought, forget about Mayfair, don't go there. Tis a silly place,

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

My wife and I got so stinking lucky with where we moved. Mayfair is a little paradise hamlet within the city for families. We sent our son (born 30 days into lockdown) to a home daycare as soon as they reopened after the pandemic. It's literally on the otherside of the block from us. We've walked him there 95 out of 100 days. Unless it's pouring rain or below zero, we walk. Now he just started 3K at the Catholic School three or four blocks from us and our 1 year old girl took his slot at daycare. We are having a hard time adjusting to the 15 minute round trip walk in the morning instead of the 5 minutes it used to take for just him.

We are two blocks from the L, three blocks from the Metra, one block from a nice park, less than a block from daycare, less than 4 blocks from a grade school, the Irish Heritage Center is around the block and has tons of programming and a pub... Oh and not a single one of these places requires crossing an arterial or semi arterial street. We are 3/4 of a mile from the North Branch Trail and forest preserve, actually tossing the kids in the Burley tomorrow first thing AM to take them up the trail to Joe Donut in Niles which is about 40 min by bike from here. Neighborhoods like this are what make this city great.

Also, on second thought, forget about Mayfair, don't go there. Tis a silly place,

That sounds nice. It's good to have the daycare right there. Such an underrated aspect about where to live if you have kids IMO. The areas up there from a residential perspective are pretty nice. We tried looking for a place in Lincoln Square originally but nothing was available we wanted.

The day care we first applied to would have been a 5 minute walk, max. Oh well. The one we're at now is closer to the actual park so from that perspective it's better. We're still like a mile away though - when it's nice out you can walk it but if in a hurry or the weather sucks then yeah. My wife will sometimes just pick up and take the bus home, or walk when it's nice.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It's good to have the daycare right there. Such an underrated aspect about where to live if you have kids IMO.

Being walkably close to where your kids need to go everyday is HUGE!

Our CPS school is one only block south of us.

My kids can walk out the door at 8:12, and still make it to school on time by 8:15.

And even better, they're now old enough to walk to school together by themselves!

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by Handro

Anyone have a good clue as to why? Why does the media in Illinois/Chicago want Illinois/Chicago to fail, or at least give the perception that they are failing? What other city/states have such self-deprecating media coverage?

It's a matter of perspective and framing. For Boomers and even early Gen-Xer's, the Chicagoland and Illinois they grew up in was umabiguously one of the wealthiest places in the country by most measures, only slightly less rich than the Bay Area or DC and a larger percentage of the national population than today, with greater associated political and media representation and whatnot. As I recall, as of 1960, Cook County was the 26th highest-income county in the country, pretty remarkable being the second-most populous (and was the first-most populous in 1950). DuPage and Lake County, not tiny at the time, were top 10. The Chicago metro area - the nation's Second city - had similar median incomes to richest large cities in the country - DC, the Bay Area, and Detroit, all significantly smaller. The region has not maintained it's share of national growth or investment over the past 40-50 years by any measure.

Of course on the flipside, if you compare to Michigan or West Virginia, the region has a lot to be thankful for and a lot of success to tout. When you consider the performance and trends most of the major rust belt cities, or Mississippi River valley cities (Stl, Memphis, NOLA) to which our region is closely tied economically and demographically, the overall picture looks pretty good.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by VivaLFuego

It's a matter of perspective and framing. For Boomers and even early Gen-Xer's, the Chicagoland and Illinois they grew up in was umabiguously one of the wealthiest places in the country by most measures, only slightly less rich than the Bay Area or DC and a larger percentage of the national population than today, with greater associated political and media representation and whatnot. As I recall, as of 1960, Cook County was the 26th highest-income county in the country, pretty remarkable being the second-most populous (and was the first-most populous in 1950). DuPage and Lake County, not tiny at the time, were top 10. The Chicago metro area - the nation's Second city - had similar median incomes to richest large cities in the country - DC, the Bay Area, and Detroit, all significantly smaller. The region has not maintained it's share of national growth or investment over the past 40-50 years by any measure.

Of course on the flipside, if you compare to Michigan or West Virginia, the region has a lot to be thankful for and a lot of success to tout. When you consider the performance and trends most of the major rust belt cities, or Mississippi River valley cities (Stl, Memphis, NOLA) to which our region is closely tied economically and demographically, the overall picture looks pretty good.

Boomers and Gen X?

Good grief. Talk about misplaced childhood nostalgia. Those are generations steeped in the worst sort of negativity about the city.

Chicago certainly had media presence when they were young, and most of it was negative just like today.

None of us here would actually want to live in mid-century Chicago

Let’s assume a baby boomer born in 1946 right after the war.

Age 6, 1952

The Second City, A.J. Liebling, 1952, The New Yorker

Age 8, 1954

City at a Crossroads: Chicago Confronts Urban Blight, 1954, Life Magazine




Age 22, 1968

MLK Assassination and Riots



Age 24, 1970

Census reports population loss.

Age 37, 1983

Harold Washington Election, Council Wars



Age 41,1987
Schools In Chicago Are Called the Worst By Education Chief - The New York Times

And so on…

[twister244]

There's one very large glarring pattern in that income graph.... The growing divide between dark blue and blood orange across the city.

I prefer 2023 Chicago over 1990 Chicago, but I also live in the dark blue area, so it's easy to say that.

If you live in any of the neighborhoods in the city where it's blood orange, you might have a different perspective on things.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by twister244

There's one very large glarring pattern in that income graph.... The growing divide between dark blue and blood orange across the city.

I prefer 2023 Chicago over 1990 Chicago, but I also live in the dark blue area, so it's easy to say that.

If you live in any of the neighborhoods in the city where it's blood orange, you might have a different perspective on things.

I do live in a blood orange city neighborhood.

But why would I prefer to live in an era where dooming was even more of an obnoxious local pastime than it is now? And the majority of people could only expect decline, could only see decline, even though early signs of a turnaround were appearing.

The Boomers and Gen X weren’t living in some Chicago golden era or a Paradise Lost. Just a regular struggling rust belt city on a knife’s edge. Compared to the past, we can at least say with confidence that Detroit-style abandonment is not Chicago’s future and the future looks brighter.

The plan is to advance again westward from the center of the city and fill up the vacant streets, the waste places, with apartment buildings and shopping malls. Nobody at present can say whether this is feasible, whether the great corporations and banks will have sufficient confidence in the future of a city whose old industries are stalled, whose legendary railyards are empty. Ours is the broadest band of rust in all the Rust Belt.

The growing black and Hispanic population has made a successful bid for power. Irish, Greek, Polish, and Italian voters are vainly resisting. As conflicts widen and lawsuits multiply, property taxes go up and services diminish. Not many people mourn the disintegration of the machine, but what will replace it? Everything seems up for grabs, and everybody asks, “Will we make it?” Middle-class whites, the city’s tax base, have moved to the suburbs. For suburbanites the city is a theater. From Schaumburg, Barrington, and Winnetka they watch us on their TV screens.

Will Chicago, that dauntless tightrope walker who has never yet fallen, get a charley horse in the middle of the high wire? Those of us, like myself, who have never abandoned Chicago—the faithful—tell ourselves that he’s not going to fall. For we simply can’t imagine what America would be without its great cities. What can the boondocks offer us? We, too, would become mere onlookers, and U.S. history would turn into a TV show. To be watched like any other program: the death of the tropical rain forests, or the history of Egypt’s pyramids.

Saul Bellow, 1983

[Chisouthside]

per crains, manteno set to receive ev battery plant.

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by Chisouthside

per crains, manteno set to receive ev battery plant.

Great news for my home county-Kankakee! Used to have a ton of manufacturing in that area: AO Smith, 2 Roper plants, General Mills, Krohler and many smaller plants. Now mostly warehouses on the interstates. Although there is an expanded Behring pharma manufacturing plant in Bourbonnais.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

Great news for my home county-Kankakee! Used to have a ton of manufacturing in that area: AO Smith, 2 Roper plants, General Mills, Krohler and many smaller plants. Now mostly warehouses on the interstates. Although there is an expanded Behring pharma manufacturing plant in Bourbonnais.

It is great. I like that it's in Chicagoland. It's the kind of thing we needed to have to create a little more gravity here around this industry. Some EV manufacturing makes a battery plant more likely > A battery plant make further EV investment likely > The number of trained employees and ancillary support networks makes other accessory investments more likely. And so on.

[moorhosj1]

Great news. The Crain’s article also mentioned this tidbit:

Pritzker gave no details, but industry sources have been reporting for a while that two other battery makers have been discussing major investments here.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by moorhosj1

Great news. The Crain’s article also mentioned this tidbit:

I'm pretty happy with Pritzker, mostly for these sorts of reasons. He really seems to be an economic champion for the city/state. I feel like his push for quantum computing could pay off huge in the future for Chicago, if the city/metro can establish themselves as a leader.