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What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen, and this is Curious City. When I say the words family business, what do you think of?

The mom and pop shop around a corner, the dysfunctional family from Succession.

Well, last episode, we looked into the oldest family business in Chicago.

And this got me thinking about family enterprise in general. Starting a business itself is a lot.

But bringing your family dynamics into said business, no matter how well you get along, it has to be

risky. If you think about how a family runs versus a business runs, totally different set of rules.

This is Jennifer Pendergast. She's a family enterprise consultant and professor at Northwestern University.

We're going to talk more about what she means here, but I wanted to start off with some history first.

Jennifer says, historically, a lot of family businesses that started in the U.S.

were in a few specific industries.

Europeans, Eastern Europeans experience with building stuff, like making equipment,

making, you know, bending metal, basic industry type stuff came over

from other countries with those skill sets and then brought them to the Midwest.

And she says, between those immigrants bringing their skills to the U.S., the American auto industry

and the agricultural-based families already here,

the oldest family enterprises were more concentrated in Midwestern areas like Chicago and Detroit.

...