aybe it’s because the election season is in full swing, with primaries nearly every week and candidates rising and falling in the process. Maybe it’s because my colleagues and I have been up to our ears in New Plant tallies for the past several weeks, compiling rankings of top metros, micros, industries and states – the latter for the obvious purpose of determining the winner of the Governor’s Cup.
But everywhere you look, a competition is under way (the Super Bowl may be over, but March Madness approaches, and the Kentucky Derby isn’t far behind).
In fact, as this issue was going to press, reporters from around the country were already contacting me for a sneak peak at the results of our New Plant rankings, because they are competing with their peers in the press for a scoop on how their community fared.
Read between the lines – or just read the lines – of most of the articles in this issue of Site Selection, and you’ll find competitive forces at work: Development near Denver’s relatively new airport stymied by competing municipal interests; new competition from mainland China for much-coveted pharmaceutical R&D investment; state governors going head to head for a shipbuilding project on the Gulf; Illinois going back to the mat to secure its claim on the Department of Energy’s FutureGen project.
The Governor’s Cup aside for a moment, I would draw your attention to the I.T. and Software Development story. The competition in that piece has to do with America’s ability to compete globally for high-tech workers. The article is packed with intelligence on which states and communities are most successful and have the deepest labor pools, but the Software and Information Industry Association makes a compelling case for immigration reform that would boost U.S. competitiveness in this vital sector. Right now, non-U.S. students on student visas fill U.S. university classrooms, then return home to Taiwan, Turkey or Thailand and work there because the H1-B visa ceiling was reached early on. Guess which markets will soon have strong, or stronger, I.T. industries? Taiwan, Turkey and Thailand are safe bets, to say nothing of India and Indonesia. You get the point.
Unfortunately, with the general election under way, little will get done in the U.S. Congress in 2008 to address this concern.
But corporate real estate executives are savvy enough to find the workers they need wherever they are – and not wait for visa ceilings in the U.S. to be raised. For their part, governors and their economic development teams are increasingly focused on work-force development as their competitive edge, as Ohio’s example illustrates in the Governor’s Cup coverage. For years, Site Selection‘s Governor’s Cup, Competitiveness Award, Top Groups and other recognitions have helped areas hone their competitive skills, and we salute the winning states and metros featured in the issue.
Till next time,
Mark Arend
Site Selection Online – The magazine of Corporate Real Estate Strategy and Area Economic Development.
©2008 Conway Data, Inc. All rights reserved. SiteNet data is from many sources and not warranted to be accurate or current.