The recent spate of climate-focused legislation in Springfield and Washington provides hope.

Before 2050 Illinois could operate with 100 percent clean energy and emit net zero carbon emissions, an outcome of the clean energy bill recently signed by Gov. JB Pritzker. Millions in federal subsidies will flow into Chicago to upgrade and expand public transportation, if the bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes an additional $39 billion for public transit finds its way to President Joe Biden’s desk. 

Economists mark the mid-1970s as a point where “deindustrialization” sent American manufacturing offshore and focused our collective attention, talents, and capital on the financial markets.

In few cities has this process been more evident than in Chicago. Our own economic character changed in 1980 after Wisconsin Steel closed its South Side manufacturing plant, setting in motion several decades of manufacturing plant closings. As manufacturing left the South and West sides, Chicago embraced an economy built on services: lawyers, accountants, consultants, and money managers. “Business services” is now the top employment sector in Chicago, according to the U.S. Economic Development Administration.