MillerCoors moves to Chicago

n the sweepstakes for landing corporate headquarters, Chicago won one Tuesday when a joint venture of two of the biggest U.S. beer operations announced it will call the city home.

Landing MillerCoors will add 300 to 400 jobs, a tiny number for an economy the size of Chicago's, economic development experts say. Still, it's a symbolic victory for a city that values its identity as a business crossroads yet has witnessed an exodus of famous names over the past decade through corporate restructurings, among them Amoco, Ameritech and First Chicago. Chicago's also won some contests, wooing such companies as Boeing from Seattle and United Airlines from the suburbs.

But landing MillerCoors comes at a price of over $20 million in state and city subsidies, raising an oft-asked question in economic development circles: Would it have come here anyway, even without an aid package?

After all, Chicago is hardly a Rust Belt relic. It's what economic development experts would call a "winner" city, a place with a healthy, diversified economy and cultural and recreational amenities to attract highly skilled workers.

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