Four Decades of Futility: Economic Development Policy and Industrial Decline in Chicago

The City of Chicago has tried, and still has in place, nearly every local, state, and federal policy that can be used in an attempt to increase and/or stabilize manufacturing jobs in the central city. The bottom line appears to be that this package of programs does not work at the level of the entire central city. Some of those policies, such as the Empowerment Zone, seem to help small areas, at least for a time, but also include negative spillover eects. This paper examines the long-term decline in manufacturing employment in the Chicago metropolitan area and in the central city of Chicago. An annual 1% decline of manufacturing employment in the nation translates into a 1% decline in the Chicago metropolitan area and a decline of 2% in the central city of Chicago.