CHICAGO—As reported yesterday in GlobeSt.com, the RealEstate Publishing Group brought more than 1,000 realestate professionals to the Hyatt Regency Chicagoon Wednesday for its 14th Annual Commercial Real Estate ForecastConference, and a big topic was the prospect for a continued migration of suburban companies into thecity. Matt Carolan, managing director ofChicago-based JLL, told a morning panel that thegravitational pull of the downtown was unavoidable.

"The truth of the matter is that every company is a tech companynow," he said, because all need to utilize the power of the web andthe analytical tools now available through computers. And thatmeans in turn that companies need to recruit the young talentessential to such work. That frequently means an urban location"because the younger folks want to live in the city." Although heunderstands many firms have an attachment to certain suburbs, "theyalso better open up an office in downtown Chicago."

The competition between suburban and urban regions does notrevolve around things like real estate costs so much as transitissues and how they impact talent recruitment, he added. Manymillennials have not even bothered to get drivers' licenses,further increasing their dependence on public transportation. Thenew Fulton Market area, once a gritty industrial neighborhood, butnow the home of Sterling Bay's 1KFulton project andGoogle, was a good example of the key role playedby trains in creating submarkets that younger workers findappealing. "If that new Green Line stop never went in that marketmay never have taken off."