Chicago: Global strategy over National strategy

There may be a little overlap between this thread and others that we've had on the Chicago board, but I think it is a sufficently critical issue to warrant a discussion of its own. Chicago is an unquestionably great city when viewed through either a global or national filter...and maybe, more importantly, when viewed on its own with no other city to compare it to. Its greatness is evident. The focus of many of the world's greatest cities is rapidly shifting from a national perspective to a global one. Borders between nations mean less and less. When cities are compared to those in their own nation, provincial thinking dominates. These cities know each other too well. There are few enough of them that appear to many to line up in some eronious rank order. Stereotyping, oversimplication, and rivalry tend to a "put down" effect, stiffling to a city's growth. But internationally, the landscape looks different, the differences flattened, the ranking more uncertain. There are too many cities to know well so preconceived notions are not the issue they are nationally. Meanwhile, global cities are highly networked with each other, with cooperation being as prized as competition. Chicago ends up fighting an absurd battle domestically related to its interior location and other issues related to an American power structure that still gives an edge to the northeast corridor and California. Ironically, on a global level, there is no such disadvantage. Thus I ask: HOW CAN CHICAGO DEVELOP A GLOBAL STRATEGY THAT CIRCUMVENTS ITS AMERICAN POSITION TO REACH A GOAL TO BE THE UTLIMATELY SUCCESSFUL GLOBAL CITY? What could a shift of paradigm from Chicago and the US to Chicago and the globe do for those who plan and work for the type of Chicago that will be far more global and far less national during this very century? WHAT SPECIFICALLY CAN CHICAGO & CHICAGOLAND DO TO REPOSITON ITSELF FOR AN INCREASING SUCCESSFUL GLOBAL PRESENCE?>