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When Boeing Landed in Chicago: Lessons for Regional Economic Development

On March 21, 2001, Boeing Co. Chairman Phil Condit announced that the company would move its corporate headquarters from Seattle to one of three locations: Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth, or Denver. Condit provided few clues about how Boeing would choose among the three cities, stating simply that Boeing was looking for a “culturally diverse city that offers ready access to global markets, provides a strong pro-business environment, and allows easy access to major Boeing operations and customers” (Schmeltzer and Hilkevitch 2001, 21A). Predictably, Boeing’s announcement sparked intensive corporate recruitment efforts in all three cities. Following a site selection process that lasted less than two months, Boeing named Chicago as the winner, choosing a downtown location. The economic development literature has focused extensively on the question of business location. With capital becoming increasingly mobile, research has focused on such questions as why companies choose the locations they do (Blair and Premus 1987; Schmenner 1980), the role of incentives and noneconomic factors such as quality of life in business recruitment (Milward and Newman 1989; Carlton 1983; Fisher and Peters 1998; Salvesen and Renski 2002), and the shift from industrial recruitment to secondand third-wave economic development strategies (Clarke and Gaile 1992; Loveridge 1996; Atkinson 1993; Bradshaw and Blakely 1999).1 Although such questions are important ones, the focus of this study lies elsewhere. Boeing’s decision to leave Seattle for Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth, or Denver was followed by a site selection process that was regional in scope. In each place, Boeing considered both city and suburban sites for its headquarters location and requested that each region coordinate its recruitment process. Boeing’s site selection process thus called for some form of regional response by all three cities. It is the nature of this response that is the focus of this article. The study addresses two principal questions: First, how effectively did municipalities within each region coordinate their recruitment efforts? Second, did such coordination play a decisive role in Boeing’s choice about where to locate its new headquarters facility? These questions are informed in part by an emerging body of literature on regionalism (see Savitch and Vogel 2000; Rusk 1993; Orfi eld 1997; Downs 1994; Pierce, Johnson, and Hall 1993). Like previous waves of scholar ship on regionalism, New Regionalism calls for increased regional cooperation. Unlike earlier When Boeing Landed in Chicago: Lessons for Regional Economic Development