Snapshot

UK-based TMF Group yesterday released the latest edition of its Global Business Complexity Index (GBCI), which studies the layers of bureaucracy that can form “a dead-weight burden on business that stifles local innovation and deters foreign direct investment with no obvious societal benefit.”

Before it was shorthand for the scourge/salve that is social media, “social” referred to society, as in “people living together in organized communities with shared laws, traditions and values,” says Britannica.

“No form of nuclear fission power — of any kind — is possible without relying on uranium.” So state the France-based Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). So it figures where to find and process the stuff might be important.

We look in on three lists of 2024 corporate end-user facility projects abroad as tracked by the Conway Projects Database: Top 10 by investment, Top 10 by jobs and Top 10 by project area.

Can you have meaningful industrial development in the least polluted places in the world? New air quality data allows us to provide at least a partial answer.

Following recently released reports on the outlook for private equity and venture capital in the year ahead, that’s what Pitchbook is doing with “All In,” a new 26-page report on female-founded companies in the VC ecosystem (minus OpenAI deals). The report reveals the usual suspects and a few outliers in terms of company location.

It’s time for another chapter in Site Selection Snapshot’s occasional series on U.S. Census Bureau data sets useful to location decision-making.

A new white paper from DHL Global Forwarding, DHL Group’s ocean and air freight division, discusses “various countries in South East Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe as well as Middle East and South America as strategic alternatives and additions to China.”

Last fall, waiting out the time before a departure over a pastrami on rye and a beer at a large Midwestern international airport, I had one of the more interesting airport conversations of my life with a stranger who sat down across the table.

At the end of January, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the developer of the global LEED green building program, released its annual list of the Top 10 States for LEED.

Quick … before the U.S. Department of Education is put on detention, suspended or expelled completely, grab ahold of deep data analysis released this week by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from the National Center for Education Statistics, the department’s primary statistical agency housed within the Institute of Education Sciences.

Congestion can really get you down. No, we’re not talking about the sniffles going around. More like the cargo and people who aren’t.

Mixed-use retail will succeed in the current marketplace to the extent that the development ties in with the community around it and connects to parks, amenities, neighborhoods and other desirable features of the town.

It can be difficult to align post-secondary education goals with the goals of employers who — despite the growing array of certificates, degrees and other credentials — are still having a hard time filling high-skill, high-wage roles. For students who may have affordability and other challenges, the question is even more direct: Is it worth it for me to even pursue post-secondary education?

Universities nationwide are nudging international students to return to campus early in order to avoid potential re-entry trouble caused by unanticipated consequences of anticipated immigration policy changes from the incoming presidential administration.

The Seabed 2030 Project aims to compile a map of the entire seafloor by the year 2030. The detail work starts at the coasts, but a company driving the project is in Colorado.

We comb through the data from Cushman & Wakefield’s report on the world’s priciest retail avenues. This year a European shopping district beat out New York’s Upper Fifth Avenue for the first time as Via Montenapoleone in Milan, Italy, was declared the world’s most expensive retail street.Photo by Andrei Domanin: Getty Images If you associate […]

Participation in snow activities increased by 10% in New Mexico between 2022 and 2023.Photo by Evan Green courtesy of New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division Step out onto the planet.Draw a circle 100 feet round. Inside the circle are 300 thingsnobody understands and,maybe, nobody’s ever seen. How many can you find? — Lew Welch, “Hermit Poems,” […]

Singapore tops more than one ranking of business environments, including the new Business Ready rankings from the World Bank.Photo of Clarke Quay courtesy of Singapore Tourism Board Time was when the World Bank Doing Business rankings were a standby resource, whether we were examining the rise of India or putting together a composite index for […]

Given California’s R&D prowess, it was no surprise that early this month the city of Sunnyvale (home to Applied Materials’ forthcoming Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization Center, pictured) was announced as the expected location for the CHIPS for America Design and Collaboration Facility.Rendering courtesy of Applied Materials It’s that time of year. Not the […]

        Slicing and Dicing the Academy   Oxford University is No. 1 in the world for the ninth consecutive year. Photo by Chinyup Wong: Getty Images Earlier this month at Times Higher Education’s World Academic Summit in Manchester, UK, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025 were unveiled. A total of […]

        WorldSkills Brings France’s Summer of Global Competitions to a Close   Attendees from Japan and Hong Kong share a jubilant moment at WorldSkills 2024 in Lyon, France. Photo courtesy of WorldSkills How do you get 100,000 visitors to your city because of vocational education? Put your city in France, for starters. […]

        The Geography of Genius   The Johnson Museum sits atop East Hill on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, one of several institutions frequently associated with MacArthur grant recipients from New York. 2019 photo by Jason Koski (UREL) © Cornell University This week’s announcement of 22 new MacArthur Fellows brings […]

        NMTCs Bring New Fuel for Growth to Low-Income Urban and Rural Areas   Rodgers Wade Manufacturing of Paris, Texas (whose replica Eiffel Tower is pictured here), is one of hundreds of manufacturers whose expansions have benefited from NMTC financing. Photo: Getty Images Last week $5 billion in New Markets Tax Credits […]