Study Group Offers Comprehensive Agenda for Ensuring Chicago’s Economic Strength Beyond 2016 Olympics

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Samantha Skinner
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CHICAGO (Oct. 17, 2007) — The first comprehensive study of the challenges Chicago faces as a leading global city  was released today by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The study, entitled The Global Edge: An Agenda for Chicago’s Future, recommends that Chicago’s leaders focus on the three key priorities of infrastructure, human capital, and global engagement in order to maintain Chicago’s status as a top-tier global city.

Authored by a study group of 40 prominent Chicago business and civic leaders, the study makes very specific recommendations for Chicago, including significantly increasing efforts to market the city as a global destination, expediting the expansion of O’Hare International Airport, reforming regional public transportation and improving education opportunities in the Chicagoland area.

The report recommendations dovetail with Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, by making the city a more attractive candidate for the Games while leaving it “a stronger, more vibrant city when the games are over.”

“The City has made great strides, but we can't rest on our laurels. Global competition is brutal and unforgiving,” said Adele Simmons, study group co-chair and vice chair of Chicago Metropolis 2020.   “ Investing in our infrastructure, human capital and capacity to engage internationally is crucial to our future success and the welfare of all of our citizens.  We can't pick and choose among these.  We must invest in all three -- equally and wisely."

Formed by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Study Group on Chicago’s Global Future is led by Michael H. Moskow, former president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and now senior fellow for the global economy at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs; Henry H. Perritt, Jr., professor of law at the Chicago-Kent College of Law; and Adele Simmons, former president of the MacArthur Foundation and vice chair and senior executive at Chicago Metropolis 2020.

According to the Study Group’s report, Chicago has transitioned from an industrial powerhouse into a global leader and deserves the accolade, “A Success Story,” bestowed by The Economist magazine. Among its many strengths are its diverse economy, financial markets, and global business services; number of corporate headquarters; transport linkages; vibrant universities, superlative beauty, legacy of public-private partnerships, dynamic immigrant communities; and success in attracting the “creative class.”

But the group also acknowledges shortcomings and challenges that impede on Chicago’s ability to ensure a successful future including its public schools, traffic congestion, overloaded facilities at O’Hare Airport and in rail yards; CTA conditions for its aging facilities and lack of public funding; declining population; fragmented governance with no fewer than 1,200 separate units with taxing power; lack of affordable housing; lack of global banking leadership; and its ability to effectively project Chicago to the world. This report provides an agenda for taking Chicago and the region smartly into the future.

Recommendations - The Global Edge: An Agenda for Chicago’s Future

Overarching recommendation:

• Everything that the Chicago region and its leaders do in the coming decades must be judged for how it contributes to economic vitality. Economic planning and investment, both public and private, must be organized around this mission. This will demand continued focus on improving transportation, building human capital and improving Chicago’s global engagement.

Improve transportation and infrastructure, including:

• Expedite the expansion of O’Hare International Airport.
• Reform the CTA and the RTA on a regional basis.
• Reconfigure Chicago’s transport system to speed the movement of both people and goods.
• Maintain the most modern digital communications system.
• Manage the local effects of global climate change, with particular attention to infrastructure questions such as storm water management, rail, and roadways and the protection of vulnerable populations. Provide for the upkeep of the city’s water system, which is inadequate to meet the challenges of climate change.
• Work with leaders in other states to speed ratification of the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact and to encourage steps to maintain water levels in the Great Lakes.

Build human capital, including:

• Educate the Chicago region’s people at all levels, including early childhood education and, especially, expand successful experiments now taking place to the entire school system, enabling them to contribute to the economy of a global city and to make maximum use of the job opportunities that this new economy provides.
• Embark on a thoughtful reform of Chicago’s City College system.
• Make maximum use of Chicago’s fine universities.
• Focus constantly on making Chicago an attractive city, both physically and in quality of life, to draw skilled and educated workers.
• Support music, drama, filmmaking, art, and culture as a vital part of this attraction.
• Continue efforts to integrate minorities, both African Americans and immigrants, into the economic, political, and social life of the region.
• Work with Congress and the administration to support immigration policies that welcomed highly qualified immigrants, both workers and students.

Increase global engagement, including:

• Support for the development of a Mayor’s Office of International Affairs to handle protocol, including the reception of visiting delegations and relations with the consular corps; oversee the Sister Cities program; and set priorities for and arrange overseas travel by the mayor and other officials.
• Strengthen the mandate and resources for World Business Chicago to help increase the city’s efforts to attract global trade and development.
• Dramatically increase the city’s tourism promotion budget, including advertising overseas, to enable the city to compete with other comparable destinations. Currently, Chicago spends one-tenth as much as Orlando, one-twentieth as much as Las Vegas and virtually nothing outside the Midwest.
• Establish Chicago offices in key public cities to represent Chicago’s interests in promoting trade and investment.
• Maintain a separate budget for foreign travel by the mayor and other city officials.
• Sponsor trips to Chicago by foreign journalists.
  

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The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, founded in 1922 as The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, is a leading independent, nonpartisan organization committed to influencing the discourse on global issues through contributions to opinion and policy formation, leadership dialogue, and public learning.