Building the Future Together: Respect, Opportunity and the South Side of Chicago

Economic development is one of my five pillars of philanthropy. I’ve always believed one of the most meaningful things we can do is help people build better lives for themselves, their families and the generations that follow.

But economic development is about much more than investment, buildings and jobs. It’s about dignity, opportunity and trust. And it’s about creating something that will still be making a difference long after all of us are gone.

I can’t think of a better example of that, or of the responsibility that comes with it, than what’s happening on the South Side of Chicago right now.

For generations, the U.S. Steel South Works mill stood along Lake Michigan, producing the steel that helped build Chicago’s skyline and the country’s bridges and skyscrapers. At its peak, the mill employed 20,000 people. Those weren’t just jobs. They were livelihoods that supported families, small businesses, schools, churches and entire neighborhoods.

There was real pride in that work. The men and women of South Chicago helped make this one of the great industrial cities in the world, and they contributed to the prosperity of the entire nation.

When the mill closed in 1992, the community lost far more than paychecks. It lost a source of identity and stability. Businesses struggled, families moved away and neighborhoods that had given so much to America’s growth were left to carry that loss largely on their own.

For more than 30 years, the site sat empty. But the people who lived around it never stopped caring about their neighborhoods or believing they deserved better. They aren’t a footnote to what’s happening there now. They’re the reason it matters.

Today, that former mill site is becoming the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP), the 128-acre first phase of Quantum Shore Chicago, a 440-acre vision for the lakefront. PsiQuantum, the anchor tenant, is building a utility-scale quantum computer there, and IBM and Diraq have joined it. Advocate Health Care is investing $300 million in a new hospital on the site. CRG is co-developing the park with Related Midwest, LJC is designing it and Clayco is building it. I’m proud of our team for helping bring this vision to life.

The technology is remarkable. PsiQuantum’s systems are so sensitive that the site will need its own cryogenic plant to keep quantum chips colder than outer space. Think about that for a moment: a place that once produced the steel that built America could now help develop the technology that shapes the next century.

But none of this happens because of one company. IQMP is a true public-private partnership, and the leadership of our partners has been extraordinary.

The University of Illinois System has been at the heart of it from the beginning. The park is managed and operated by an organization owned by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. That means a public university whose mission is service to the people of Illinois is responsible for the campus’s long-term stewardship. Researchers and students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Illinois Chicago and the Discovery Partners Institute are building the knowledge and talent the quantum industry will depend on. Together with the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Illinois Tech, Chicago State University, City Colleges of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools, they can create a pipeline that reaches from a South Side classroom all the way to a research lab.

Governor JB Pritzker and his administration had the vision and conviction to make a historic commitment. The State of Illinois is investing $500 million in IQMP, on top of earlier investments in the state’s quantum ecosystem. That kind of public leadership sends a clear message: this community is worth investing in, and the state will stand behind that belief.

The Illinois Economic Development Corporation, formerly Intersect Illinois, did the hard and often invisible work of bringing world-class companies to the table and showing them why Illinois, and why the South Side, was the right place to build. This month, Illinois EDC named IQMP its inaugural Team Illinois Partner of the Year at the Illinois Impact Awards. I can’t think of a better word for this collaboration than team. No one wins this alone.

And the most important member of that team is the South Side community itself.

As significant as this investment is, I don’t believe we can call it a success unless the surrounding neighborhoods succeed along with it. That starts with respect. Respect for the families who worked in those mills and the generations who came after them. Respect for what this community lost, and for the resilience it took to hold neighborhoods together through decades of disinvestment. And most of all, respect for the people who live there today.

That means treating them as partners in shaping their community’s future, not simply as beneficiaries of a major development. A beneficiary receives whatever someone else decides to give. A partner has a seat at the table, a voice in the decisions and a stake in the outcome.

We can’t come into a community with a big project and assume we know what’s best. We have to listen first, understand the history, recognize the challenges and appreciate the many strengths that already exist.

IQMP and its partners have committed to creating workforce opportunities, bringing educational programming into local schools and opening up the lakefront with new green space. Keeping that commitment takes intentional effort. It means pathways for local residents into construction jobs now and into the long-term careers that follow. It means education, workforce training and apprenticeships, so young people growing up on the South Side can see a future for themselves in an industry being built in their own backyard. Our university and community college partners make that possible in a way few projects ever could.

It also means opening doors for local contractors, entrepreneurs and small businesses to grow alongside the campus, and recognizing that the health of the surrounding neighborhoods matters just as much as the success of the campus itself. I want the next generation of quantum engineers, technicians, business owners and community leaders to come from these very neighborhoods.

Trust is earned through actions, not announcements. People who have watched promises come and go over the decades have every reason to ask tough questions. Will these jobs really be available to our families? Will local businesses have a fair shot? Will our neighborhoods get better? Will the benefits last?

Those are fair questions. We owe the community honest answers and, ultimately, results. That means showing up, listening, being accountable and staying engaged long after the ribbon cutting. The community deserves to hold all of us to our commitments.

When the community succeeds, the project becomes stronger. When businesses invest in people, they build a stronger workforce. When families see opportunity close to home, neighborhoods thrive and the entire region benefits.

This project will first be measured by construction milestones, investment dollars and technological breakthroughs. But I hope that 20 or 30 years from now, we’ll measure its success by something far more important: the families who built careers here, the local businesses that grew, the young people who found a path into industries they might never have imagined and the neighborhoods that became stronger and more economically secure.

That’s the legacy worth building.

I’ve spent my career in development and construction, and I know how exciting it is to take a big idea and make it real. But I’ve also learned that the most important things we build aren’t always physical structures. They’re relationships, trust and the dignity of knowing your community’s future is being shaped with you, not for you.

We should approach this opportunity with ambition, humility and deep respect for the people whose community this is. The South Side helped build America’s past. Now we have the responsibility to make sure its people are full partners in building America’s future.

That’s what success looks like to me.