Chicago, Illinois
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Chicago is the largest city in the Midwestern U.S. state of Illinois, as well as the third most populous city in the United States. Known as the "Second City," the "Windy City," the "City of Big Shoulders," and "Chi-town" (as well as other nicknames, and a variety of colloquial nicknames that reflect the city's character), Chicago is located along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. When combined with its suburbs and nine surrounding counties in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, the greater metropolitan area known as Chicagoland encompasses a population of nearly 10 million people.
Growing from its 1833 founding as a frontier town of the Old Northwest into one of the world's premier cities, Chicago is ranked as one of 10 "Alpha" (most influential) world cities by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network. Chicago was the site of the world's first skyscraper, and today is the architectural, financial, and cultural capital of the Midwest. The city is also the transportation center of the U.S., with more rail lines and interstates radiating from Chicago than any other city in the U.S.[citation needed] The city's skyscrapers, local cuisine, political traditions, and sports teams are some of its most recognized symbols.
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The local ecocnomy
Chicago is the United States' second financial center with the nation's second largest central business district and third largest gross metropolitan product. The city's gross metropolitan product is approximately $390 billion.[16] Manufacturing, printing and publishing, and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy.
The construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and the railroads in the 1800s made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour, created global enterprises and communicated with divisions spread around the world via telegraph. Today, Chicago is a major tranportation and distribution center. The city is also a major convention destination; Chicago is third in the U.S. behind Las Vegas and Orlando as far as the number of conventions hosted annually.
The city is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). Chicago is also home to four major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (Merc). Chicago and the surrounding areas also house many major brokerage firms and insurance companies, such as Allstate Corporation.
Chicago is home to eleven Fortune 500 companies, while the metropolitan area hosts an additional 21 Fortune 500 companies. Chicago also hosts 12 Fortune Global 500 companies and 17 Financial Times 500 companies. The city and its surrounding metropolitan area are also home to the second largest labor pool in the United States, numbering approximately 4.25 million workers.
Source - Wikipedia: Chicago, Illinois
Recent Chicago business news
Links to recent headlines via Topix.net
- 05/24/12 - New Development for Formerly Homeless Veterans Celebrates Opening before Memorial Day
- CHICAGO After years of struggling with substance abuse and shuttling between relatives' homes, veteran Steven G. Brooks finally has a stable place to call home and access to the training he needs to launch a new career.
- Panel urges adding mass transit in renovation of Jane Addams Tollway
- The Illinois Tollway should include congestion-priced, "managed" lanes and mass transit options such as express buses as part of its plan to rebuild the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, a special advisory council recommended today.
- Kevin McGuinness, a customer since 1982, places an order at...
- Chops, brats or burgers? Memorial Day kicks off the summer grilling season, and according to the annual Weber GrillWatch survey, nearly three-quarters of American grill owners will be in the backyard this weekend, tongs in hand, cooking up a holiday meal.
- Nationwide Credit Clearing Has Been Helping Clients Repair Their Credit Score Since 1991
- Oftentimes, those reports can be corrected. Nationwide Credit Clearing offers comprehensive credit repair services that are specially designed to improve, monitor and protect your credit rating.
- Times-Picayune scales back, but can an iPad produce the same intimacy?
- Six years ago I was asked to help choose the journalism awards that the American Planning Association would be giving for "outstanding coverage of city and regional planning issues." One entry, from the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, stood above the others by so many heads and shoulders that there was actually a brief discussion of taking it out of ... (more)
- Fitch: U.S. Insurance Industry Has Capacity to Meet Hurricane Coverage in 2012
- Early forecasts for the 2012 U.S. hurricane season predict that the North Atlantic Basin will likely produce below-average hurricane frequency relative to long-term results, as a number of environmental forces that serve to stifle the development of tropical storm activity appear more prevalent at this point in 2012 than in many recent years.
- La Creperie Celebrates 40 Years In East Lakeview
- CHICAGO - When La CrAaperie first opened in the East Lakeview neighborhood, the Century Mall across the street was still an art deco movie palace, the Gay Pride Parade drew crowds of only about 950, and the community was commonly known as New Town.
- How Going Green Limousine Gives Back
- There are roughly 7,000 licensed cabs operating within Chicago, producing gas emissions that together would fill the Willis Tower and beyond.
See also
External links
- Official website
- Chicago business Chamber of Commerce
