Our Young & Restless

Chicago's young adult population resides in close proximity to its urban center—more so than any of the other top 50 U.S. metros.

But you wouldn't have learned this from reading the local press coverage concerning the release of the study—The Young and Restless in a Knowledge Economy.

The report conducted by CEOs for Cities and Joe Cortright examines where college-educated 25-34 year olds, an extremely mobile segment of the labor force, chose to live during the 90s.

The answer?

In America's largest metros areas. More than 71 percent of the nation's college-educated young adults live in one of the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, compared with about 58 percent of the overall population.

Joe Cortright, Portland economist and author of the report, argues that "the U.S. is on the verge of a seismic shift in labor markets, and fault lines will emerge to threaten a city's economic future unless it succeeds in understanding and attracting the young, college-educated worker who propel today's knowledge-based economy." Particularly in lieu of several impending demographic factors:

• the retiring baby boom generation,
• plateaus in college attainment levels, and
• the leveling number of women entering the workforce.

The best opportunity to attract talent and to root it in place occurs when people are in their young adult years. Especially since, according to the study, the likelihood of an individual (let alone a couple or family) moving across state or metropolitan lines falls roughly by half between one's 25th and 35th birthdays and continues to decline right through retirement age.

How did Chicago fare?

While the proportion of our population that is comprised of young adults wasn't the highest, nor did we have the highest proportional increase in this population, we did rank among the top 25 U.S. metros.

We fared better when it came to the proportion of our young adult population with at least a college degree. We ranked 11th. Not bad for a "blue-collar industrial city" that has been identified by the Brookings Institution as one of the largest immigrant gateways of the 1990s (part of an unprecedented 20 year period of national immigration rivaled only by the influx of immigrants during the first three decades of the 20th century).

Chicago truly stands out in terms of the concentration of the young adults that reside within a 3-mile radius of its urban center—an area that generally corresponds to the commercial heart and close-in neighborhoods of each region:

• #1 in concentration of young adults residing in close-in neighborhoods
• #2 in concentration of young, college-educated young adults residing in close-in neighborhoods

The findings of the study validate something that WBC has been emphasizing for years, the unique concentration of talented professionals in Chicago's Central Business District (CBD) and surrounding neighborhoods. A fact that has been undergirded by the steadily growing investment in the downtown area from a diverse suburban-base of companies that were experiencing difficulty in attracting and retaining the strategic, creative and knowledge-worker talent they needed to compete in a rapidly changing economy.

--Glen Marker, Director of Research
World Business Chicago


To read the full study—The Young and Restless in a Knowledge Ecomony—please visit the CEOs for Cities website.

A Growing Economy: The Year in Review

A variety of companies moved their offices to downtown Chicago in 2005. In June we reported on the first half of the year's success in our Semi-Annual Highlights. As the year progressed, so did many new exciting opportunities for Chicago. The following recaps the first half of the year and highlights successes we can report on for the third and fourth quarters.

First and Second Quarter Recap

WBC worked with Mayor Daley and the Department of Planning and Development to keep numerous companies in Chicago:

• CNA Insurance—retained 3,000 jobs
• Jump Trading—retained 75, plus 25 new jobs
• TTX, Co.—retained 275 jobs

Third and Fourth Quarter Highlights

Bimeda, an Irish company that manufactures animal pharmaceuticals, is moving their headquarters to Oak Brook Terrace from Missouri. Two jobs will be created immediately, with more to follow.

CDW has outgrown their current facility and found a new home with approximately 280,000 sq.ft. CEO John Edwardson committed to a major downtown expansion adding more than 700 jobs.

Fifth Third Bank announced their new regional headquarters in downtown Chicago at 222 S. Riverside. They have a five year projection of more than 800 jobs for the Chicago location. In addition to the newly created jobs, Fifth Third Bank will retain 2,000 jobs, moved from Rolling Meadows to Chicago.

Mittal Steel USA, the world's largest and most global steel company, with shipments of 42.1 million tons and revenues of over $22 billion in 2004, made Chicago home to its U.S. headquarters.

Pfizer—A 2.5-year collaboration of the State of Illinois, the Village of Skokie, iBIO and WBC resulted in Cleveland-based Forest City agreeing to buy and redevelop the Searle facility including its globally unique product lab. Village TIF really made this happen. Discussions continue regarding the creation of a biotech "park" in the City of Chicago.

S.USA Mutual Life—Mopping up Mayor's pitch to Nasim Ali and Westside native Vikki Pryor to open sales, marketing and retail operation of their NYC-based working-family insurance company at 55 E. Jackson Blvd.

URS, the engineering and planning company signed a lease at 100 S. Wacker to consolidate its Midwest regional operations downtown. The 125 existing city jobs will be doubled when jobs move into the city from Rolling Meadows around first of 2006.

The newest team to be added to the WNBA league, the Chicago Sky, unveiled its name, color and logo to the City on September 20, 2005. The Chicago Sky will play at the UIC Pavilion and hope to attract 6,500 fans per game. Eighteen full-time employees and coaches will operate the team, with at least two of the players scheduled to make a permanent move to Chicago.

Wrigley Company opened its global innovation center, a 200,000 square-foot office and lab complex on Chicago’s Goose Island. The center will house the company’s research and development, packaging, engineering, regulatory and quality-control departments. Wrigley is also expanding their sales and marketing team, which could create up to 600 jobs at 600 W. Chicago Ave (the old Montgomery Ward warehouse on the Chicago River.)

YMCA USA is moving their HQ office to Chicago's South Loop, at the southeast corner of Harrison and State Street. Y-USA hopes to complete construction by 2010 for a structure that would accommodate growing staff, a central training facility for YMCA personnel across the country, and possibly house the YMCA's archives and museum.

Chicago's Greatest Hits: A 2005 Collection

City building is a combination of willful muscle, strategic intent, and soulful evolution. The sum of Chicago's parts has had a good year. Here are some of the hits on which metropolitan Chicago will build in the new year.

O'Hare Modernization—The single most important driver for our economic future is finally underway. Hey, that was easy.

Millennium Park—Chicago reminds itself of who it is and what it's about, sends a message to the world.

108 North State—The vacancy previously known as Block 37 is under construction. This crown jewel of a decade-long revitalization of State Street, includes an airport express CTA station, and CBS Channel 2.

White Sox Win World Series —Almost enough to keep you warm all winter long. Almost.

New York Stock Exchange—Had to buy Chicago-based Archipelago exchange in a belated effort to try to catch up with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc. and the Chicago Board of Trade. (But the future belongs to derivatives not equities.)

Rudy Giuliani Picks Chicago for Headquarters —Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that the headquarters of his six-city financial advisory company Giuliani Capital Partners would be headquartered in Chicago, not New York! Totally ignored by Chicago business press.

China Says Chicago's Best—The People's Republic of China in a Great Hall of the People ceremony honored Chicago Public School's K-12 Chinese language program as a model for the world. America's largest program is looking to the corporate sector to support its rapid expansion.

New Delhi, India Non-stop—American Airlines' longest nonstop route links Chicago and India's business and political capital.

Chicago in China—Following up on the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations' Shanghai Chicago Dialogue, the Kellogg School of Management, CCFR, WBC and Synovate market research company are developing a branding campaign to raise the image and awareness of Chicago among Chinese leaders. Another initiative driven by Sister Cities, A.T. Kearney, Freeborn & Peters, Motorola, Aon and others is working on creating a Chicago business development office in Shanghai.

Confucius Institute—The Chinese government has selected Walter Payton College Prep as the U.S. home for the Confucius Institute for the development of cultural ties and understanding.

Renaissance 2010—Business and government come together to create America's boldest city school reform.

WBC Hits

Aviation Summit—A high-level, international round table on commercial passenger and air freight, highlighting O'Hare Modernization. Co-organized with Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Kellogg School of Management and the Graduate School of Business.

NextFest—Recruited and assisted in the staging of Wired magazine's international NextFest at Navy Pier on June 25-26: all the coolest emerging products and services were shown off (along with Chicago itself) to consumer technologies' movers and shakers (Motorola was title sponsor).

Retention Program Award—In partnership, ComEd, the Department of Planning and Development, and WBC won the best program award from Business Retention & Expansion International, for the 5-year-old initiative that conducted one-on-one interviews with 1,200 manufacturing businesses employing about 85,000 in Chicago.

O'Hare-Midway Terminal Advertising—Expanded an improved air-side advertising campaign targeted at transferring business travelers, in ClearChannel-sponsored light boxes, and hourly on at-gate television.

Business Marketing Association Awards—Won BMA Gold (top) Award for our O'Hare TV commercials created gratis by Jim Schmidt and Joe Stuart of Downtown Partners Chicago advertising; won Bronze for our electronic newsletter, Economic Focus.

fDi Magazine—Chicago was named America's top city for foreign direct investment (FDI) by this Financial Times company publication. The city was also rated #1 for Best Economic Potential, Best Transport, Best FDI Promotion Strategy, Best IT & Telecom, and Midwest City of the Future.

IEDC—Supporting the Department of Planning and Development's leadership, WBC co-sponsored the largest-ever and reportedly most successful annual meeting of the International Economic Development Council, showing off Chicago's leadership to a worldwide audience.

Workforce 2.0 Ads—Organized pro bono creation of three ads promoting America's first public-private lifetime working skills development for this organization co-founded by WBC four years ago.

Chicago by the Numbers

World Business Chicago
177 N. State Street, Suite 500
Chicago, Illinois 60601

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