Manufacturing Industrial Decline: The Politics of Economic Change in Chicago, 1955–1998

Contemporary urban political economy emphasizes the role of structural factors in explaining the deindustrialization of cities in the post‐World War II era. Urban economic restructuring, by most accounts, has left city officials with few choices other than to pursue corporate‐centered economic development strategies emphasizing downtown‐area commercial and residential growth. In Chicago, however, a corporate‐center redevelopment strategy advanced by a coalition of downtown business leaders competed with a production‐oriented strategy articulated by a coalition of neighborhood organizations, manufacturers, and labor. Centrally located industrial districts facing gentrification pressures became contested terrain, and manufacturers ultimately benefited from protective measures put in place by a sympathetic administration. This essay argues that urban economic restructuring is open‐ended and politically contested. It concludes that a fuller appreciation of the contingency of urban economic development would help uncover viable regime types featuring governing coalitions that include both community‐based organizations and neighborhood business establishments.