Chicago, the City of the Big Shoulders, personified the Industrial Age. That age has ended, and the Global Era has begun. Like great cities around the world, Chicago faces new competition and new challenges. Either Chicago will become one of the handful of global cities on the planet, or it will decline - economically, politically, socially, culturally – into a backwater, one of the many has-been cities of history. 

In January 2007, the Global Chicago Center of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs convened a study group of forty academic, civic, and business leaders from the Chicago region to examine the city’s global future. Over the course of six months, they considered a range of issues related to Chicago’s economic vitality, infrastructure, sustainability, human capital, quality of life, educational system, government, institutions, and global connectivity. Drawing on their own experiences as well as the contributions of outside experts, study group members discussed what Chicago must do today in order to be a global leader tomorrow. The report of their conclusions and recommendations will help to chart Chicago’s course in the age of globalization.

The study group is cochaired by Michael Moskow, former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Henry Perritt, Jr., professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law; and Adele Simmons, vice chair and senior executive of Chicago Metropolis 2020. Richard Longworth, former senior writer for the Chicago Tribune and a senior fellow at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, serves as a consultant and drafted the report. Copies of the report on Chicago’s Global Future will be distributed to attendees.

Recorded Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at The Chicago Club.