Doing business in...

Chicago and the Midwest
By Thomas L. Amberg
Vice-President and Partner, North America, PROI
President
CushmanAmberg Communications, Inc. and Partner
Public Relations Organisation International, Inc.
180 North Michigan Avenue
Suite 1600
Chicago, IL 60601
USA

Chicago
Chicago is a city of world-class architecture, a city of unsurpassed beauty, and a city with enormous civic pride. Located on the shores of Lake Michigan in the heart of the United States and the Midwest, Chicago is home to many interesting people, sports teams, buildings, museums and cultural attractions. Referred to as "The Windy City," lakefront parks, parades, cherished landmarks and diverse neighborhoods all invite residents and visitors to live, work and enjoy themselves here.

With over 150 years of its unique history, from the first settler Jean Baptiste Point de Sable to Michael Jordan, Chicago is home to many famous and fascinating people, and the invention home of many "first" products, places and events.

Historically, Chicago has been known as "The City That Works." It is the hub of railroads and trucking and is able to boast that it has the "World’s Busiest Airport" -- O’Hare Field.

Population
As the third largest city in the United States, Chicago has a population of nearly three million and five million throughout Cook County. Hence, the Chicago area has the third largest labor pool in the United States and is well renowned for its ethnic neighborhoods that surround this world-class city.

Cook County Pop: 5,376,741
The population is comprised of white (3,025,760, 56.3%), Black/African American (405,361, 26.1%), Asian (260,170, 4.8%), American Indian and Alaska Native (15,496, 0.3%), Native Hawaian and other Pacific Islander (2,561, .1%), Other races (531,170, 9.9%), Mixed race (136,223, 2.5%)

Chicago businesses and residents form a rich multilingual and multicultural environment. The region has one of the country’s most ethnically diverse populations, with more than 100 ethnic backgrounds represented. A plethora of cultural activity, from street fairs to foreign film festivals to social clubs to international chambers of commerce flourish throughout the neighborhoods, encouraging the City's continuous celebration of culture, arts and entertainment.

Geography
Stretching 29 miles along the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago is the most central and accessible city in the North American continent. The Chicago region encompasses the

City and its surrounding suburbs and includes six counties in Illinois (Cook, Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane and Will) reaching a total population of eight million.

The City is traditionally divided between the North, West and South sides. The central part of the city is commonly known as "the Loop."

The following information indicates driving time and distance to the six largest Midwest cities within 400 miles of Chicago:

Business and Financial Institutions
U.S. and international businesses find Chicago an ideal place that responds to the source of capital and the financial services that the residents and the world can depend on. The wealth of culture, business, and beauty is for which Chicago and the Midwest is known.

As a result, Chicago is a highly influential money center. There are more than 300 U.S. banks and 40 foreign bank branches doing business in the City, making it one of the world’s premier financial and trading centers. Five major exchanges are at the heart of Chicago's financial prominence. They are the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the Mid-America Commodity Exchange, and the Midwest Stock Exchange.

Chicago is the international leader in the trading of commodities, stock options, currency, and interest rate futures. Eighty percent of the world's commodities are traded through three of Chicago's exchanges.

The Chicago Board of Trade is the world's largest, and oldest, futures and options exchange. The world's most actively traded contract, the Treasury bond futures contract, is traded at the Chicago Board of Trade. The Chicago Board Options Exchange is the world's first, and largest, stock options exchange.

Chicago’s long-established and growing tradition of being a center for business and industry, range from well-established manufacturing sectors to newer fields like biotechnology. Of the economic sectors where employment is projected to grow nationally through 2005, many already have a strong presence in Chicago. Among these sectors are real estate, insurance, finance, healthcare, and business services. Growing employment is also expected in transportation, communications, technology and utilities.

Adding to Chicago's reputation as a business and industrial center is its popularity as a premier location for many corporate headquarters. Companies choose Chicago in order to take advantage of the benefits including proximity to transportation, suppliers, customers, similar businesses, access to a skilled labor force, and an extensive urban infrastructure.

Transportation
Transportation continues to play an integral role in Chicago's economy and economic development. Chicago is currently the nation's center for air passenger and freight movements; the rail freight industry in Chicago handles millions of tons of manufactured goods per year, which are transported along 37 routes which radiate from the region. Chicago is also the nation's largest trucking center with over 200 truck terminals.

Three agencies comprise the Chicago area public transportation system. The Chicago Transit Authority runs the bus, elevated train and subway operations within the City of Chicago. Pace Suburban Bus Service operates the suburban bus system and Metra Metropolitan Rail oversees the commuter railroads between Chicago and the suburbs. Therefore, traveling anywhere can be done through safe and easy public transportation.

Chicago's airports serve nearly 70 commercial commuter and cargo airlines on a regular basis. Every day, over 3,000 flights from Chicago's airports service over 280 cities. International carriers offer direct service to 60 cities around the globe. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport is the world's busiest airport.

Chicago is well equipped to handle the projected growth in the air transportation industry with the employment in the sector having increased by 11 percent in 2000.

Government
The City of Chicago's government has undergone significant changes from when it received its city charter in 1837 to its current form today. While the City is populated by almost three million people, it is divided into 50 wards, each represented by an alderman. All 50 alderman comprise the Chicago City Council. Through its government process of checks and balances, the Mayor and the City Council oversee all city-related issues.

Cost of Doing Business
Chicago's major taxes, including property tax, are lower than in many major U.S. cities.

The City's key tax advantages include: a lower state corporate income tax rate, exemption of personal property from property tax, absence of a local income tax and the exemption of machinery and equipment from sales tax.

Chicago employs a variety of economic development tools such as property tax abatements, enterprise zone incentives and free-port provisions to reduce the tax liability of qualifying firms.

International Trade
The economic outlook for international trade opportunities for U.S.-based manufacturing companies is very favorable. The Midwest is currently the fastest-growing exporter of manufactured goods in the country. This trend should continue throughout the rest of the decade, with the export of high value-added goods accelerating, while imports slow down. In Illinois there are 5,988 export establishments responsible for almost 346,000 jobs. Almost 60 percent of these are manufacturing companies.

Manufacturing
The diversity and vitality of Chicago's industrial base has provided the backbone for the City's economy for over 100 years. From food processing and printing, to metalworking and industrial machinery, Chicago's manufacturing industries provide jobs for Chicago's residents and tax revenues needed to support city services.

Office and Retail Space
Chicago's office market is the third largest in North America and Europe. More than $10 billion in construction has been completed in the central business district in the past two decades. The availability and competitive pricing of high-class downtown office space provides an opportunity for growing firms, as well as new and relocating companies to operate in one of the nation's most active business centers.

Conventions
Chicago's central location attracts millions of attendees and exhibitors to some of the nation's largest and best convention and trade show facilities each year. The City is host to more conventions, trade shows, and corporate meetings than any other city in the world.

McCormick Place is the largest exhibition and meeting facility in North America. The complex offers 2.2 million square feet of exposition space plus 100 meeting rooms. The recent $987 million McCormick Place expansion added an additional 870,000 square feet of exhibition space and 170,000 square feet of meeting room space. In addition to McCormick Place, the O'Hare Exposition Center provides an additional 450,000 square feet of space for conventions and meetings.

Chicago attracted 25 of the 200 largest conventions in the country during 1998. The 1,431 conventions held in 1998 were attended by over one million business travelers, who spent over $1 billion while in Chicago. In addition, 156 trade shows and 33,364 corporate meetings were held in Chicago, drawing 2.3 million and 1.1 million attendees, who spent $3.6 billion and $403 million respectively.

In 1998, Chicago assumed the annual host-city role for the COMDEX Windows World Convention, the largest computer convention in the world. The Convention, produced in cooperation with Microsoft Corporation, annually draws over 100,000 attendees and generates nearly $151 million in expenditures.

Tourism
As a growing industry nationally and internationally, the travel and tourism industry employs an estimated 6.6 million individuals and generates $421.5 billion annually at the national level. Approximately, four percent of spending and employment in the travel and tourism sector occurs in Illinois, generating an estimated $1.06 billion in state and local taxes. In 1997, Chicago attracted over 25 million pleasure and business visitors, who pumped over $13 billion into the local economy.

Chicago hotels registered the highest occupancy rates in 20 years. There are 60 hotels in the Downtown/Near North Chicago area with 39,000 rooms available. The Metropolitan Chicago area holds approximately 70,000 available hotel-motel rooms.

Healthcare
While America has the largest healthcare system in the world, Chicago is arguably the capital of that system. It is home to the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Dental Association, and the American College of Surgeons. Chicago is an international center for academic medicine with five universities offering degrees in health related disciplines. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Medicine is the largest medical school in the country with nearly 1,300 students. It also has the largest minority enrollment (African-American, Asian, Hispanic) of any medical school in the country (except for traditionally African-American medical schools). UIC also boasts the only accredited public health school in the State of Illinois.

The economic impact of the 97 area hospitals is considerable. Chicago hospitals employed 123,586 full-time personnel in 1997 and paid out $4.5 billion in wages and salaries.

Communication
Chicago has always been known as a great newspaper town, but communication technology has expanded far beyond newsprint for informing the citizens of Chicago about current events.

In addition to the many radio, television and cable stations, wire services and daily newspapers, Chicago is also home to over 60 ethnic newspapers and over 50 neighborhood newspapers that serve the City's diverse communities on a daily to monthly basis. The two major daily newspapers, The Chicago Tribune (with a circulation of 653,554 readers) and Chicago Sun-Times (with a circulation of 484,379 readers), are always in strong competition to be the top newspaper in Chicago. The Chicago metro area has 100 radio stations and 15 television stations. In addition, Chicago residents have access to over 100 cable television stations.

Recreation
Chicago takes great pride in its professional sports teams, which reach the scope of viewers all around the world. These include: the Chicago Bulls (Men's Basketball), Chicago Bears (Football), Chicago White Sox (Baseball), Chicago Cubs (Baseball), Chicago Blackhawks (Hockey), and Chicago Fire (Soccer).

Chicago benefits from an elaborate system of parks, boulevards, and museums and boasts 29 miles of beaches, bike and running paths, fishing piers, and eight yacht harbors. The public availability of the waterfront makes Chicago unique among major U.S. cities. The renovation of Navy Pier, a famous landmark, has added even more vitality to the lakefront area by including restaurants, specialty shops, marina facilities, and docking for cruise and charter ships.

St. Louis
Another bountiful U.S. city responsible for making the Midwest such an essential part of the nation’s economy is the Greater St. Louis area, which is a bi-state region comprising 12 counties, five in Illinois and seven in Missouri. It is the 18th most populous metropolitan area in the United States with a population of 2,603,607.

St. Louis, Missouri is within 15 miles of the U.S. population center, ranking as the closest metropolitan area to the U.S. population center. St. Louis is also located within 500 miles of one-third of the entire U.S. population and businesses, and within 1,500 miles of 90 percent of the combined population and Gross Domestic Product of Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The St. Louis region is becoming a "21st century entrepreneurial powerhouse." That message has echoed from the pages of the prestigious Forbes magazine in a feature article about St. Louis in the July 5, 1999 edition.

The Forbes article spotlights St. Louis’ unique mix of growing small and mid-size entrepreneurial companies and international corporate headquarters.

Most recently, Forbes published its Forbes 500 list in its April 16, 2001 issue. Twelve St. Louis area companies were listed in the overall Super Rank, which is based on a composite of sales, profits, assets and market value.

FORTUNE magazine also released its annual list of America’s FORTUNE 500 companies in the April 16, 2001 issue. With nine FORTUNE 500 companies headquartered in the region, St. Louis ranked sixth among major metro areas. There are 19 Fortune 1000 companies and 3,992 branches or subsidiaries of Fortune 1000 companies in St. Louis.

The St. Louis region has been nationally recognized several times recently for its commitment to encouraging new business growth. St. Louis has been on Entrepreneur magazine’s Top 10 places for small business four of the past five years, ranking second in that nation in 1998 in their annual Dun & Bradstreet assessment. Inc. magazine recently placed St. Louis among the Top 10 areas for growing firms. Industry Week and Computerworld similarly ranked the St. Louis region in the Top 10 in the nation.

The Christian Science Monitor recently dubbed St. Louis the "Silicon Valley of Biotech" in a front-page story. Monsanto’s multi-million dollar agricultural headquarters and Life Science Research Center are both based in St. Louis, composing one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated facilities searching for ways to improve agriculture through biotechnology and genetic engineering. The new $146 million Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, which opened in 2000, is another major component in the area’s biotech development, along with the companion biotech incubator, the Nidus Center.

This trend toward St. Louis high-tech business development has helped the region reduce its dependency on the defense industry. In 1989, one job in seven was defense-related; today that ratio is one in 14.

The St. Louis region’s economy is booming with 91,100 new jobs created from 1995 to 1999. The region’s main industries include aviation, biotechnology, chemicals, electrical utilities, food and beverage manufacturing, refining, research, telecommunications and transportation.

Through a record-breaking economic development campaign, the St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Association helped Greater St. Louis raise $14 million to use toward reaching the area’s goal of generating 100,000 jobs in the region in 2000.

The St. Louis region’s low cost of living, affordable housing and high quality of life make it a great place to live. From a business standpoint, the central location and time zone, strong transportation infrastructure, highly skilled workforce and low operating costs make it highly desirable for employers.

Transportation
Lambert–St. Louis International Airport serves all major cities and provides non-stop service to 93 cities. It is the ninth largest hub airport in the United States, the ninth largest airport in the world and the 14th busiest airport in the world. On a weekday, more than 1,600 flights arrive and depart Lambert for destinations in North America and Europe.

A $2.6 billion airport expansion is currently underway, which will increase the number of gates from 85 to 105 and add a third parallel runway improving capacity in all weather conditions. The distance from downtown area is 15 miles

MidAmerica Airport is the St. Louis Region's second full service commercial airport and a reliever to Lambert International Airport. Located in St. Clair County in Illinois, it provides state-of-the-art facilities for passengers, traffic, and cargo, including a foreign trade zone and an adjacent 800-acre industrial park. Pan American Airways began jet service at MidAmerica in August 2000. This service connects St, Louis with Gary/Chicago and Sanford/Orlando. The distance from downtown area is 24 miles.

Labor Force
The total metropolitan labor force of St. Louis is 1,361,773. Total employment is estimated at 1,317,363 and total unemployment is approximately 44,411. The unemployment rate is about 3.25 percent.

Demographics
White (77.0%), Black/African American (17.3%), Asian or Pacific Islander (2.1%), Hispanic (1.6%), American Indian (.09%), Native American (.01%), Other Races (1.9%).

Healthcare
St. Louis is a leading medical center with more than 50 hospitals, two outstanding medical schools, 5,423 physicians and 2,457 primary care physicians.

Recreation
Downtown or around town, there are many ways St. Louisans play. Three professional sports teams - Cardinals baseball, Rams football and Blues hockey - play in downtown

St. Louis venues. Laclede's Landing, a revitalized riverfront district, features additional entertainment opportunities, including riverboat casinos, several historic area wineries, restaurants, shops and the Gateway Arch Park, which surrounds the famous Gateway Arch.

Union Station, formerly St. Louis' train terminal, now houses a comedy club, hotel, specialty shops and restaurants, and a man-made pond for paddle-boating under the old train shed. Grand Street, a center for ethnic restaurants and art galleries; historic Soulard, featuring an open-air farmer's market, beautifully restored homes and the Anheuser-Busch brewery; the Hill, home to Italian neighborhoods, shops and restaurants; and the Central West End, with its eateries, antique shops, and grand old homes are just a few of the neighborhoods visitors love to explore.

St. Louis' Forest Park, site of the 1904 World's Fair, outdoes New York's Central Park in size. Frequented by runners, rollerbladers and picnickers, the park also hosts some of the region's favorite cultural and educational institutions: the St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis Zoo, St. Louis Science Center and the Missouri History Museum. All are free to the public. Even the Municipal Opera (affectionately known as the Muny), a 12,000-seat outdoor amphitheater, offers free seats for its summer theater productions.

Five state parks and hundreds of neighborhood parks make St. Louis one of the greenest regions in the nation and a beautiful place to visit.

Hospitality is St. Louis' second largest industry. It employs more than 46,000 people, who serve over six million visitors a year and bring $8 billion into the local economy.

Prepared by PROI Partner

CushmanAmberg Communications, Chicago + St. Louis