NOTE: This is the first in a six-part series of Policy Updates on the OECD Territorial Review:
Part 1: Assets and Challenges
Part 4: Transportation and Logistics
The Paris-based, international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released an in-depth report on the "mega-region" that includes northeast Illinois, northwest Indiana and southeast Wisconsin. The study was organized by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, with funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and numerous other organizations, including CMAP. The study is part of OECD's series titled Territorial Reviews: Competitive Cities in the Global Economy, which use a standard methodology to explore how globalization is shaping economic development in regions across the world. This is the first time that OECD has conducted such a Territorial Review in the U.S. While CMAP plans for the seven counties of metropolitan Chicago, the OECD study focuses on a 21-county tri-state region sometimes referred to as the Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee corridor.
The Territorial Review focuses on the tri-state region's economy, offering recommendations to enhance the competitive edge of the region and spur future development. The first chapter, on the assets and challenges of the metropolitan economy, addresses the mega-region's important role in our interconnected global economy, and compares it to other regions around the world. CMAP and other organizations throughout the tri-state region participated in the development of this report with OECD. GO TO 2040 was an influential starting point for the team's research and policy recommendations, and CMAP provided a large amount of data, policy guidance, and other input for the report.
Map courtesey of OECD. While 50 percent of the world's population currently lives in cities, 70 percent of the population is expected to be urban by 2050.
In documenting the assets of the region, the OECD review presents the tri-state area as a major global economic center. As OECD shows, the mega-region is productive, contributing 3.4 percent of national GDP despite having only 3.1 percent of the population. With 57 headquarters of Fortune 500 companies, the three-state corridor is a center of North American and global business activity. This status as an economic powerhouse, according to the OECD review, derives from a high-quality education system, an attractive quality of life, strong human capital and network connectivity, and a diversified and globally oriented business mix.
Despite these strong assets, the Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee corridor's contribution to national growth has slowed over the past decade. From 2001 to 2007, the mega-region ranked 51st out of 76 global OECD regions in per capita economic growth and 16th out of 20 major regions identified by OECD within the U.S. This lackluster growth, when compared to the tri-state area's traditional productivity, is compounded by concentrated poverty and low paying jobs in the region's distressed neighborhoods, according to the report.
Map courtsey of OECD.
Within this context of assets and challenges, the subsequent chapters of the OECD review proceed to delve into the realms most relevant to future regional economic growth, including workforce development, entrepreneurship and innovation, transportation, green growth, and governance.
This is the first in a series of Policy Updates on the OECD report, which will analyze how the OECD's recommendations can help advance implementation of GO TO 2040.