McDonald's suburban hometown is worried because the company is abandoning them for Chicago

pulse

July 20, 2017 5:25 PM

McDonald's is moving its Oak Brook, Illinois headquarters downtown. Some employees and residents worry how it will affect the suburb.

Several people hustle past a new McDonald's McCafe coffee shop May 1, 2001 in Chicago, the first McCafe located in the United States.

In 1971, McDonald's settled its global headquarters in Oak Brook, a Chicago suburb with fewer than 8,000 people. Over time, Oak Brook's identity became closely linked with the fast food chain, which brought jobs, resources, and infrastructure to the town.

But in 2016, the company announced that it would move to downtown Chicago. A

The relocation worries a number of employees and residents who rely on the company for their income, according to a new report from the Washington Post's Jonathan O'Connell.

McDonald's relocation could have an economic impact on Oak Brook, as evidenced by other large companies that have left the suburbs for the city.

A number of ExxonMobil employees in Fairfax County, Virginia reportedly lost jobs, after the oil company moved its Mobil Gas headquarters to Houston in 2015. In May 2017, GE broke ground on its new corporate headquarters in Boston, after it abandoned suburban Fairfield, Connecticut (its home of 42 years) due to disputes about the state's corporate tax policy.

McDonald's may not be chasing lower employee wages or property taxes — cities tend to have higher minimum wages than suburbs. Instead, it's probably looking for workers who are more tech-savvy, because these people tend to want to work in cities, according to the Post. It will join a number of other suburban companies that have moved to cities, from

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