After Deindustrialization: Uneven Growth and Economic Inequality in “Postindustrial” Chicago Marc Doussard Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University 2040 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208-4100 m-doussard@ northwestern.edu Jamie Peck Department of Geography University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2 and Center for Urban Economic Development University of Illinois at Chicago 400 S. Peoria St., Suite 2100 Chicago, IL 60607 peck@geog.ubc.ca Nik Theodore Department of Urban Planning and Policy and Center for Urban Economic Development University of Illinois at Chicago 400 S. Peoria St., Suite 2100 Chicago, IL 60607 theodore@uic.edu Key words: deindustrialization economic growth labor-market polarization social inequality new economy Chicago abstractThis article presents a critical commentary on the development, through restructuring, of the Chicago economy in the period since the onset of deindustri- alization in the early 1980s. Adapting an innovative methodology for the measurement of labor-market inequalities over time at the metropolitan scale, the article provides an empirical analysis of the city’s new mode of growth. A notable feature is an entrenched and deepening pattern of wage inequality in Chicago, which is distinctive from that evident at the national level. Closer attention should be paid to what have proved to be extended processes of eco- nomic transformation at the urban scale, the social and geographic contours of which have yet to be adequately mapped. 183 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 85(2):183–207. © 2009 Clark University. www.economicgeography.org