Waterloo, Iowa, has approximately 68,000 residents (2010 estimate), and is the county seat of Black Hawk County. Waterloo is the largest city by population, in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metropolitan statistical area (MSA), located between three large economic centers—180 miles from Minneapolis, Minnesota; 265 miles from Chicago, Illinois; and 295 miles from Kansas City, Missouri. W... Read More
The Community Development and Policy Studies division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago hosted the Industrial Cities Initiative (ICI) Symposium on February 28, 2012. More than 50 economists, community and economic development professionals, city representatives, and analysts from business, academia, and city government attended the symposium. So far, ICI has been a year-long endeavor... Read More
Why was Racine Chosen for the ICI Study Like all the other cities in the ICI study, Racine was a manufacturing hub in the 1960s. The city has long been a major manufacturing hub for fanning mills (machines that separate wheat kernels from chaff). While manufacturing jobs represent proportionately less of the city's workforce than in the 1960s (roughly 50% then versus approximately... Read More
Background The city of Pontiac is the county seat of Oakland County, Michigan. Oakland County promotes itself as the tenth wealthiest U.S. county with a population of one million or more. Oakland County comprises 62 cities, villages and townships. These communities range from blue collar, inner-ring suburbs like Ferndale and Hazel Park, to wealthy cities such as Birmingham, Bloom... Read More
Background on Gary, Indiana Gary is located 25 miles south of Chicago, Illinois. It borders Lake Michigan, the water source for the steel mills that once dominated the area. The city, named after U.S. Steel founder, Elbert Gary, has tracked the successes and failures of the steel industry over time. Before the 1960s, Gary was a prosperous city that relied heavily on the steel indu... Read More
The story of distress in Detroit has been well-told from the riots of the 1960s through the near-collapse of the auto assemblers in 2008. The table below shows Detroit's dramatic population loss since 1970, while both Michigan and the United States have had population increases almost every decade. ... Read More
Now that the interviews connected with our 10-city study are almost complete, the Community Development and Policy Studies Department (CDPS) is now focusing on the comparative data analysis aspect of the project. At a symposium on February 28, 2012, we will discuss more of the data from each city's case study factsheets. Meanwhile, this blog looks at changes in manufacturing and populatio... Read More
Our Industrial Cities Initiative Symposium has a new date. Previously scheduled for Tuesday, December 13, 2011, the event will now take place at the Chicago Fed on Tuesday, February 28, 2012. The event is being delayed so that all 10 of the cities: Cedar Rapids, IA, Waterloo, IA, Aurora, IL, Joliet, IL, Fort Wayne, IN, Gary, IN, Grand Rapids, MI, Pontiac, MI, Green Bay, WI, and Racine, WI... Read More
Where is Cedar Rapids, Iowa? Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa with 126,326 residents (2010 estimate) and is the county seat of Linn County. Cedar Rapids is located on both banks of the Cedar River and uniquely positioned 20 miles north of Iowa City and 100 miles west of Des Moines - two economic hubs for the state. Why was Cedar Rapids, Iowa chosen for the s... Read More
The purpose of the Community Development and Policy Studies' Industrial Cities Project is to develop comprehensive community profiles of cities throughout the Federal Reserve's 7th District that had populations of at least 50,000 and had 25% or more of their employment in manufacturing in 1960. The ten cities that will be profiled for this project were taken from a larger list of 54 and w... Read More
