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ook around the metropolitan area of Chicago, and you will see signs of change. Boeing, the global leader in the aerospace industry, now calls the Windy City its home. Ford Motor Co. is developing North America's first major supplier park for the automotive manufacturing sector in Chicago. And America Trans Air is moving forward with plans to build a US$100 million training center near Midway Airport.
      Not that long ago, a number of experts had written the Second City off. Its days as a preferred location for Corporate America and the world's No. 2 financial center were over, they said.
      They were wrong.
      Consider the state of Illinois' track record in 2001:

• Unseating a record four-year run by neighboring Michigan, Illinois took home the coveted Governor's Cup for 2001 from Site Selection magazine -- the annual ranking that rates all 50 states according to their ability to generate new and expanded corporate facilities.
• Chicago, the economic anchor of Illinois, unseated four-time winner Detroit as the top-ranked metro in the U.S. for new and expanded facilities.
• Illinois generated more capital investment per capita, more new jobs per capita and more new manufacturing sites in 2001 than any other state in the nation.
• Illinois placed more small towns (21) in the top 100 of America, in terms of corporate expansion activity, than any other state.
• Illinois tied with Kansas for the No. 1 ranking in the U.S. in the annual Digital State Survey conducted by the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the Center for Digital Government.
• Chicago was named one of Fortune magazine's top three "Best Cities for Business" and recruited more large-scale corporate headquarters relocations in 2001 than any other metro area in the country.

      That track record is a far cry from a city destined for the scrap heap of history, as some journalists in the business press suggested exactly one year ago. What happened to change the tide of history, and where did this amazing turnaround suddenly begin?
      Pam McDonough, director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, credits much of the turnaround to the vision and efforts of one man: Gov. George Ryan.
      "A lot of the change in our success rate occurred with this governor, and it had to do with his economic development strategy," says McDonough. "Thanks to programs initiated under his watch -- programs like the Illinois EDGE (Economic Development for a Growing Economy) Tax Credit and the Illinois FIRST infrastructure funding program -- our track record and our ability to secure corporate relocation projects really started to shift. Plus, we have done a much more aggressive job of making sure that we are integrating all of the appropriate state and local incentives into our deals."
      One such incentives package -- the General Assembly's passage of the Corporate Relocation Act -- led directly to Chicago luring the corporate headquarters relocation of Boeing from Seattle. Without that important piece of law, the city would have lost a US$250 million deal and the prestige that goes with being home to a $57 billion-a-year company.
      But the Boeing move doesn't begin to tell the whole story about what is happening in Illinois. To find that story, one has to go beyond the confines of the Loop and explore the record-breaking level of corporate expansion activity that's occurring in places like Waukegan, Danville, Springfield, Edwardsville, Joliet, Bolingbrook, Libertyville, Woodridge and Addison.