Building the Suburban Factory and Industrial Decline in Postwar Chicago

Abstract

This chapter examines the built form of deindustrialization through an examination of the metropolitan geography of factory construction after 1945. It shows the little capital investment that flowed to Chicago, while the suburbs became the prime location for the construction of new industrial facilities. It also discusses how employment loss in the central city of Chicago was rooted in site selection decisions made by the managers of industrial and financial firms about more profitable locations for fixed-capital investment. The chapter focuses on factory construction that provides a different perspective on the impact that industrial change had on the built environment. It looks at studies of the relationship between local economic change, politics, and place dependency that have demonstrated the tenuous hold that places have on productive forces and the unequal relationship that exists between place and capital.