While the main purpose of our blog is to promote new projects and research we in CDPS are working on at all stages, we also want to highlight existing community development resources on our website, such as the Chicago Fed Income-Based Economic Index (IBEX), which may be of value to our readers. The Chicago Fed IBEX is a set of indicators intended to help understan... Read More
Fort Wayne, Indiana, is the county seat of Allen County. Located less than 20 miles west of Ohio border and 50 miles south of the Michigan border, Fort Wayne is the second largest city in Indiana after Indianapolis. Work Force and Labor Development Fort Wayne experienced a significant economic impact with the departure of Navistar International (formerly International Harv... Read More
At the Industrial Cities Initiative (ICI) Symposium in Chicago on February 28, 2012, participants expressed an interest in more comparative analysis of similar cities on a broader geographic basis. An upcoming audio conference titled, “Smaller Cities that Think Big: Lessons from Resurgent and Transforming Cities,” may help address that interest. The Community Development Departmen... Read More
Background Grand Rapids, the county seat of Kent County, is located in western Michigan. Grand Rapids is the center of a metropolitan statistical area that includes Kent, Ottawa, Muskegon, and Allegan counties. History Grand Rapids was incorporated in 18501 and, at that time, the city had a main furniture factory and many smaller furniture factories. Wood furnitu... Read More
The Industrial Cities Initiative Symposium was held at the Chicago Fed on Tuesday, February 28, 2012. All 10 of the ICI subject cities-Cedar Rapids, IA, Waterloo, IA, Aurora, IL, Joliet, IL, Fort Wayne, IN, Gary, IN, Grand Rapids, MI, Pontiac, MI, Green Bay, WI, and Racine, WI— have a profile posted on the blog site. The views expressed in this post are our own an... Read More
Waterloo, Iowa, has approximately 68,000 residents (2010 estimate), and is the county seat of Black Hawk County. Waterloo is the largest city by population, in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metropolitan statistical area (MSA), located between three large economic centers—180 miles from Minneapolis, Minnesota; 265 miles from Chicago, Illinois; and 295 miles from Kansas City, Missouri. W... Read More
The Community Development and Policy Studies division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago hosted the Industrial Cities Initiative (ICI) Symposium on February 28, 2012. More than 50 economists, community and economic development professionals, city representatives, and analysts from business, academia, and city government attended the symposium. So far, ICI has been a year-long endeavor... Read More
Why was Racine Chosen for the ICI Study Like all the other cities in the ICI study, Racine was a manufacturing hub in the 1960s. The city has long been a major manufacturing hub for fanning mills (machines that separate wheat kernels from chaff). While manufacturing jobs represent proportionately less of the city's workforce than in the 1960s (roughly 50% then versus approximately... Read More
Background The city of Pontiac is the county seat of Oakland County, Michigan. Oakland County promotes itself as the tenth wealthiest U.S. county with a population of one million or more. Oakland County comprises 62 cities, villages and townships. These communities range from blue collar, inner-ring suburbs like Ferndale and Hazel Park, to wealthy cities such as Birmingham, Bloom... Read More
Background on Gary, Indiana Gary is located 25 miles south of Chicago, Illinois. It borders Lake Michigan, the water source for the steel mills that once dominated the area. The city, named after U.S. Steel founder, Elbert Gary, has tracked the successes and failures of the steel industry over time. Before the 1960s, Gary was a prosperous city that relied heavily on the steel indu... Read More
