Mayor Rahm Emanuel had a mantra in the final years of his administration: Chicago leads the nation in corporate relocation and foreign direct investment. Emanuel aggressively courted foreign investors, taking trade trips to Paris, London, Japan and China to ensure the city held on to its top spot.

In 2018, Chicago lived up to Emanuel's mantra, beating out other U.S. cities to remain the top target for foreign direct investment for the seventh year in a row, according to an IBM analysis. It placed 16th globally by the number of foreign projects launched in 2018.

While it would not release historic totals on the number of jobs created, dollars invested or foreign companies that have located here in recent years, World Business Chicago, the city's public-private point agency for global business, estimates based on federal data that the city is home to 1,800 foreign-based companies that account for more than $140 billion in foreign direct investment. By its count, 241 foreign projects were launched in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2018, and 222 in 2017.

But with budget turmoil, an administration focused on neighborhood development and an overall decline in foreign investment in the U.S., will Mayor Lori Lightfoot continue the city's streak?

The mayor told Crain's that foreign direct investment—FDI, in government-speak—would "absolutely" continue to be an important gauge of the city's health and that she hoped to top U.S. competitors again in 2019.

"It's one important metric," Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar adds, but only one. "You can't just take one metric, isolate it and say this is how the economy's going." At the same time, "investment is investment, capital is capital. We want to encourage and set a policy environment that is conducive to FDI," including making business friendly for Chicago's existing immigrant populations, Mayekar says.

The U.K., Japan, Canada, Germany and France are top investors in the Chicago area. There's tech and banking from the U.K., automation and life sciences from Germany, real estate investment and the new CRRC Sifang train car manufacturer from China, construction from France, and hundreds of others.

What makes Chicago so attractive? Heads of foreign chambers of commerce cite O'Hare International Airport's status as the nation's most connected airport; strong access to customers, talent and supply chain; an abundance of financial services and capital; and, for freight and logistics, the city's central location.

"I personally consider it the capital of the Midwest," says Kenji Tanaka, acting consul general at the Consulate-General of Japan in Chicago. He says Japanese projects have nearly doubled in the Chicago area the past five years.