This study addresses two related sets of questions. First, how do banks differ with respect to commercial lending across different neighborhoods? Do some communities receive greater or lesser amounts of lending, even when levels of business activity are taken into account? Secondly, and in order to answer this first set of questions, it was necessary to construct a master list of businesses to assess the potential demand for credit in these neighborhoods. Thus, the second set of questions concerns the validity of commercially available business listing sources.
Virginia Carlson
Alternative Employment Impacts of the Proposed McCormick Place Expansion
The Ad-Hoc McDome Coalition asked the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development (CUED) to do an assessment of the proposed Metropolitan Pier and Expansion Authority's (MPEA) employment estimates for the proposed McCormick Place Expansion project. A study (entitled the Long Range Marketing Study) conducted for the MPEA by KPMG Peat Marwick estimated that without the expansion, 2,000 Cook County jobs could be expected to be lost from a slowdown in activity at McCormick Place.
Structural Change and Import Substitution in Chicago
The Chicago economy has offset its growing import shares in most of its industries by increasing the
share of activity in service and other industries with low propensities to import. Over the next several decades the shift toward services will slow down. If the rise in import shares can't be reversed, the area will either have to export more to balance higher levels of imports or its production levels will shrink. Programs to promote import substitution can play a major role in stabilizing the local economy.