In 1985, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Great Lakes Commission conceived and produced a statistical compendium of the Great Lakes region entitled "The Great Lakes Economy: A Resource and Industry Profile of the Great Lakes States". The present document represents a culmination of several years' research which updates and eclipses its predecessor in several important ways. The volume provides analysts of the region the opportunity to interpret the facts surrounding the region's endowments, performance, and changes. In doing so, several authors have chosen to look beyond the states themselves to the closely-linked Canadian portion of the Great Lakes region. Resource and industry trends and performance are still addressed in full but the linkages among the region's resources, people, and industries are also brought to the fore.

"In this analysis of the economic aspects of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Ship Canal, the authors have endeavored to present conservatively the more important local and national advantages to be gained from opening the Great Lakes to ocean traffic. Prior to making this investigation, they, like many others, had formed an immature judgement that ocean vessels on this route could not compete with existing routes serving the Northwest. A study of the factors affecting the costs and advantages of the various available routes and methods of transportation has served to dispel the impressions derived largely from reports submitted many years ago when the conditions and costs of transportation, as well as the needs of the vast territory served by the Great Lakes, were very different from what they are at the present time" -- from foreword.