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ho says a magazine that publishes just six times a year can’t break news stories? This issue, featuring our annual Governor’s Cup award for the state with the most new and expanded commercial facilities in 2003, is packed with news. Ohio has broken a several-year claim to the Cup held by Illinois and Michigan – and may be staging a winning streak like the one it enjoyed for three years starting in 1993.
Of particular interest to cities and towns across the U.S. is which of them made this year’s rankings of Top Metros and Top Small Towns. If the news value of these annual tallies is at all questionable to you, just realize that when this issue appears, I typically spend days doing little other than fielding reporters’ phone calls from around the country seeking insights into why their communities ranked as they did. Just remember: You read it here first.
I alluded in the last Editor’s View to some news I was all too happy to reveal prior to publication of this issue – the debut of two new departments in Site Selection. Firstly, in World Reports, you will find the launch of the Site Selection/NAI Industrial Location Index, which will appear in each March and September issue. It’s easy to use the index, and it’s just as easy to misuse it. The proper way to use it is to think of the data as a simple, relative comparison of average costs and rates from one industrial market to another. Over time, the index will reveal trends that a third party, Linneman Associates, will identify and analyze as a resource for considering industrial locations. Certain assumptions have been built into the index to standardize content across categories. Misuse of the index would be to read too much into it, because as Site Selection and NAI well know, actual costs and rates vary widely depending on the industry, the facility and economic factors specific to a given market.
Secondly, Technology Toolbox (page 166), our new technology column, appears in this and all subsequent issues to spotlight new systems for making corporate real estate managers more effective. Senior Editor John McCurry has agreed to head up this coverage.
As the political season shifts gears, I must point out still more news in this issue, which ought to be of special interest to those bemoaning the effects of globalization on American industries’ ability to compete for projects and create jobs. It turns out, things aren’t so bad after all. Our coverage of 2003’s Top Global Projects reveals some foreign direct investment trends that should not be lost on those tracking U.S. competitiveness nor on those formulating economic policy in an election year.
According to our internal analysis using Conway Data’s New Plant database, 68 percent of the 250 largest projects came to the United States in 2004. Asia was a distant second at 13 percent, and Europe captured 12 percent. But it’s not just our analysis. IBM-PLI, which monitors cross-border investment flows and operates the Global Investment Location Database (GILD), also identified the U.S. as the top receiver of multinational investment projects, followed by China and India. As for manufacturing investment, the U.S. ranked first globally in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries and second in chemicals. See Top Global Projects (page 178) for more such analysis. But remember, you read it here first.
Till next time,
