Economy of Chicago

Chicago Board of Trade

Chicago and its suburbs, which together comprise the Chicago Metropolitan Area, is home to 29 Fortune 500 companies and is a transportation and distribution center. Manufacturing, printing, publishing, insurance and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. The total economic output of Chicago in GMP totaled US$547B in 2012^[1] making Chicago the 21st largest economy in the world^[2] just surpassing the total economic output of Switzerland.

Real estate and corporate location

The central downtown area has experienced a resurgence, in contrast to recent years, with construction of major new condominium and Class A office buildings. These include the 92-story Trump Tower Chicago, Lakeshore East development, and the 300 North Lasalle office building. Since the recession, other projects, like the planned 150-story 2000 foot Chicago Spire by architect Santiago Calatrava, have now been cancelled.^[3] Many city neighborhoods are gentrifying at a rapid pace as well, including Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Pilsen, Uptown, Near Southside, and Rogers Park. The massive expansion of O'Hare International Airport and recently reconstructed Dan Ryan Expressway will shape development patterns for years to come.

Changes in house prices for the Chicago metropolitan area are publicly tracked on a regular basis using the Case–Shiller index; the statistic is published by Standard & Poor's and is also a component of S&P's 10-city composite index of the value of the residential real estate market. Home prices in Chicago advanced 7.8% in March 2013 over March 2012^[4]

Finance

Top publicly traded companies in metro Chicago according to revenues with metro and U.S. rankings
Metro		Corporation		US
1		Walgreens Boots Alliance		17
2		Archer Daniels Midland		27
3		Boeing		30
4		State Farm		41
5		United Continental		78
6		Sears Holdings		87
7		Mondelēz International		89
8		Allstate		92
9		McDonald's		106
10		Exelon		119
11		US Foods		133
12		Abbott Laboratories		136
13		AbbVie		152
14		Kraft Foods		156
15		Illinois Tool Works		171
16		Baxter		189
17		Navistar		259
18		CDW		265
19		RR Donnelley		268
20		W. W. Grainger		295
21		Discover Financial		296
22		Dover Corporation		301
23		Motorola Solutions		312
24		Tenneco		338
25		Ingredion		412
26		Anixter		420
27		Integrys		450
28		CF Industries		463
29		Old Republic International		465
30		United Stationers		488
31		LKQ Corporation		490
32		Telephone and Data Systems		504
33		Jones Lang LaSalle		552
34		Northern Trust		574
35		Mead Johnson Nutrition		582
Further information: Companies in the Chicago area Source: Fortune 500 2013[5]

The city houses one of the Federal Reserve Banks, established in 1914. There is also the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago. The largest banks in the Chicago region (by % of deposits) are: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America (through its acquisition of LaSalle Bank), BMO Harris Bank (a BMO subsidiary), and Northern Trust. The largest banks headquartered in Chicago are: Northern Trust, Chase, BMO Harris Bank, Wintrust Financial, and First Midwest Bank. Many financial institutions are in the Loop.

Chicago has five major financial exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX), the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), and NYSE Arca. While the city of Chicago houses most of the major brokerage firms, many insurance companies are in the city or suburbs, such as Allstate Corporation.

Largest Employers

According to Reboot Illinois,^[6] the largest employers in the city of Chicago are:

#	Employer	Employees
1	U.S. Government	49,860
2	Chicago Public Schools	39,094
3	City of Chicago	30,340
4	Cook County, Illinois	21,482
5	Advocate Health System	18,512
6	JPMorgan Chase	16,045
7	University of Chicago	15,452
8	State of Illinois	14,731
9	United Continental Holdings	14,000
10	AT&T Illinois	14,000
11	Walgreens	13,657
12	Abbott Laboratories	12,000
13	Presence Health	11,959
14	Chicago Transit Authority	11,100
15	University of Illinois at Chicago	9,900
16	Northwestern Memorial Healthcare	9,614
17	American Airlines	9,600
18	Jewel-Osco	9,155
19	Northwestern University	9,121
20	Allstate	7,808
21	AON	7,667
22	Rush University Medical Center	7,500
23	Archdiocese of Chicago	7,500
24	Walmart	7,260
25	Northern Trust Company	6,644

Historic highlights

Chicago Board of Trade

Before it was incorporated as a town in 1833, the primary industry was fur trading. In the 1770s, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, the area's first resident and Haitian-born fur trader, established a fur trading post in the area which later became known as Fort Dearborn, along the bank of the Chicago River, where he traded until relocating again in 1800.^[7]

The American Fur Company, established in 1808 by John Jacob Astor to compete with the powerful Canadian North West and Hudson Bay companies, practically took control of the fur trade in the United States following the War of 1812. It quickly became known for its ruthless practice of buying out or destroying the competition, as most private traders in Chicago soon found out. It appointed John Kinzie and Antoine Deschamps as its first agents in northern Illinois, and they reported to the company's headquarters on Mackinac Island. Their field of operations covered northeastern Illinois and the Illinois River. In 1819, Charles H. Beaubien was brought in to assist Kinzie and eventually became head of the outfit. Gurdon S. Hubbard replaced Deschamps in 1823 but soon went on his own by purchasing all interests of the company in Illinois.

Industrialization

Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, as home to Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs,^[8] while early in the 20th Century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the brass era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907.^[9]

It was also home to Grigsby-Grunow, which manufactured radios under the Majestic brand until the company failed in 1934.^[10] (Majestic Radio and Television Corporation preserved the Majestic name, while General Household Utilities kept Grunow alive.)^[11] Chicago also hosted E. H. Scott's Scott Transformer Company, which introduced a high-grade radio in 1928, and grew into Scott Radio Laboratories;^[12] this was located at 4450 Ravenswood Avenue in 1946,^[12] and produced "very expensive, beautifully-designed, chrome-plated chassis".^[13] It added "a line of high-quality television sets in 1949".^[14] Other entrants in this business were Zenith, which started life there in 1918, entering auto radios in the 1930s,^[15] and Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, which started manufacturing power supplies in 1928 and went on to automobile radios under the Motorola marque in 1930,^[16] as well as Walkie-talkie and Handie-Talkie and for the Army.^[16]

Modern-day futures and commodity trading markets were pioneered in Chicago. A number of events led to this, along with Chicago's transportation systems and geographic proximity to the rest of the country. Massive amounts of goods passed through Chicago from places in the Mississippi Valley such as St. Louis, Missouri. Grain was stored in Chicago, and people began buying contracts on it. Later, people as far away as New York City began buying contracts by telegraph on the goods that would be stored in Chicago in the future. From this were established the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and the modern systems in use today for futures and commodity trading.

Chicago Economy
2000 Census Data	Chicago	Illinois	US
Manufacturers shipments, 1997 ($1000)	26,745,880	200,019,991	3,842,061,405
Wholesale trade sales, 1997 ($1000)	31,971,060	275,968,383	N/A
Retail sales, 1997 ($1000)	13,882,143	108,002,177	2,460,886,012
Retail sales per capita, 1997	$4,944	$8,992	$9,190
Accommodation and foodservices sales, 1997 ($1000)	4,481,917	14,826,805	N/A
Total number of firms, 1997	176,605	882,053	N/A
Minority-owned firms, percent of total, 1997	26.7%	12.5%	14.6%
Women-owned firms, percent of total, 1997	27.0%	27.2%	26.0%

Notable people

Chicago has produced many of the foremost industrialists, corporate lawyers, merchants, and financiers in United States history. Among the foremost of the Chicago industrialists, lawyers, financiers, and merchants were John Villiers Farwell, Edmund Dick Taylor, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, Charles Gray, Marshall Field, Richard Teller Crane, Martin Ryerson, John Jacob Glessner, Jacob Bunn, John Whitfield Bunn, John Graves Shedd, Cyrus Hall McCormick, Edward Avery Shedd, Charles Banks Shedd, Leander McCormick, Stanley Field, Charles Deering, James Deering, Robert Law, Francis Peabody, Leonard Richardson, Milo Barnum Richardson, Joseph Edward Otis, Frank Hatch Jones, Arthur Jerome Eddy, Arthur J. Caton, Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank, Ezra Butler McCagg, Julius Rosenwald, Morris Selz, Harry Selz, William McCormick Blair, William Douglas Richardson, Charles Farwell, James Monroe Stryker and John Stryker of the Bunn-Richardson-Stryker-Taylor family (See: John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn), Samuel Insull, Max Adler, Lucius Fisher, Lucius Teeter, John Peter Altgeld, Walter Gurnee, Philip Danforth Armour, Gustavus Franklin Swift, Michael Morris, Jacob Best, Jonathan Y. Scammon, and many others.

See also

• Tourism in Chicago
• List of companies in the Chicago metropolitan area
• Economy of Illinois
• Great Lakes Megalopolis

References

1. "12 American Cities That Rank Among The Biggest Economies In The World". Business Insider. Retrieved 2015-11-30.
2. "If U.S. Cities Were Countries, How Would They Rank?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2015-11-30.
3. "Death knell for Chicago Spire as receiver appointed". The Boston Irish Emigrant. 2010. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
4. Home price jump is more rebound than bubble
5. "Fortune 500 2014: Full List". Fortune. CNNMoney.
7. DuSable Heritage Association
8. Norcliffe, Glen. The Ride to Modernity: The Bicycle in Canada, 1869-1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), p.107.
9. Clymer, Floyd. Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877-1925 (New York: Bonanza Books, 1950), p.178.
10. Mahon, Morgan E. A Flick of the Switch 1930–1950 (Antiques Electronics Supply, 1990), p.107.
11. Mahon, p.107.
12. Mahon, p.167.
13. Mahon, p.169.
14. Scott himself quit in 1945. Mahon, p.167.
15. Mahon, p.189.
16. Mahon, p.110.