Chicago! Now with fewer jobs!

(Upstart) Chicago has never been able to garner much of a reputation for high-tech. The past year has seen its attempts to entice technology companies to set up shop in Chicago. The city’s ongoing initiative, Chicago CivicNet, has been slow going and could take years to implement.

In its own defense, the Windy City has always boasted a more well-balanced economy than those of the high-tech hotbeds. Like Gillian Anderson, it may not be sexy, but it’s stable.

So when Chicago was stung by weaknesses in three major Old Economy corporations within just a few weeks’ time, it seemed like a rebuttal from an Internet industry often derided for its turbulence: Instability is not confined to the Internet, and in fact, you’re never too old to hit hard times.

Today the Chicago press is buzzing about the 2,500 jobs Motorola says it will cut from a plant in suburban Harvard, Ill. The Harvard plant was targeted for job cuts due to high labor costs, according to the Chicago Tribune. As a result, Motorola will now make cell phones in a plant based in Chihuahua, Mexico (I’m not making this up) that was once used to manufacture Kathie Lee Gifford clothing (okay, that I made up).

Last week, Chicago candy-maker Brach’s closed its doors after 76 years of tooth-decaying service. Like telecom firms, they too suffered from restrictive government regulation—in this case, regulations that forced the company to buy sugar domestically, which is more expensive. (Damn FCC. First you get the sugar, then you get the power, and so on and so on.)

Even Methuselan retailer Montgomery Ward’s—arguably the most boring company in America, the exact opposite of an upstart—recently shut its doors in Chicago after 128 years. This was no risky business model meant to capitalize on hype and frenzy. This was a sure thing: Selling cheap crap to farmy folk. And a century of stability didn’t help it much last month.

So take that, you ivory-tower critics of Internet culture. You who are content to watch the new economy grow from the sidelines. To let someone else take the risks and do your dirty work. You’re not as safe as you’d like to think. Sure, Chicago’s economy is chugging along just fine, and it is looking to lure its share of innovative technology firms. But the new breed of successful Internet companies is unlikely to think of Chicago as a hotspot.

“Yeah, Chicago’s nice and stable,” they’ll say, “But it’s no Chihuahua, Mexico.”

Senior Writer Ed Gubbins must be getting Gillian Anderson confused with Ann Jillian. Or Louie Anderson. Who the hell knows? E-mail him at ed_gubbins@intertec.com.