Another Trade Show Gone?

The hits just keep on coming:

• Chicago's standing as a trade show center faces yet another pummeling as the National Restaurant Association weighs whether to take its 2012 trade show elsewhere, according to sources close to the negotiations.

  An exit by this McCormick Place star--a top show here for more than a half-century--would be a third brutal punch to the city, which in the past week lost two other shows.

  The plastics industry trade show, a triennial event, announced Tuesday it will move its 2012 and 2015 shows to Orlando after nearly four decades in Chicago. And the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society last week said it would move its 2012 annual meeting to Las Vegas.

  Both cited the cost of doing business in Chicago as the major factor in their decisions.

The Restaurant people haven't verified this one yet, but the fact that they're only committed to Chicago through 2011 speaks volumes and gives them unprecedented leverage in making their decision. The plastic industry trade show said they'll save $20 million by not showing up and they're similar in size and scope to the Restaurant convention.

We could actually be witnessing the dissolution of the last of the Rust Belt cities before our very eyes. An even bigger blow could be the 2010 census if Illinois loses another few seats in Congress.