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• 1 media/EXHRMD_CBT0076_03_0039_0008_003a.jpg media/EXHRMD_CBT0076_03_0039_0008_003a.jpg 2019-12-20T01:50:11-06:00 New Global Economy 92 plain 2021-01-12T12:24:17-06:00 Chicago has been a key player in the global economy for most of its history. From the late 1800s, it had been a center for manufacturing and distributing goods throughout the United States and the world. But by the late 1980s, the number of high-paying manufacturing jobs declined, and the city's status as a distribution center was put into question.
  
  Reminders of Chicago's industrial legacy:
  
  While labor-saving technologies contributed substantially to this decline, global competition played an important role. Major manufacturing firms shifted operations to other regions in the United States or to other countries. At the same time, economies in other countries, particularly in East Asia and in what would eventually become the European Union, grew stronger.
  Those changes augured a major shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. They provided opportunities for trade and newer approaches to investment. But they also undermined the United States'--and Chicago's--reliance on manufacturing. The question was now whether Chicago could adapt to these changes.
  
  John McCarron, an urban planning expert, discusses the challenges globalization posed for Chicago: