Toyota made its first North American manufacturing impression 15 years ago in a region that's leading all regions for automotive projects over the past decade: the American South. That imprint has only deepened with time, acquiring greater luster as the region's automotive economy deepens and spreads at the same time.
      In fact, while Toyota has been the catalyst for what many call "Automotive Alley" -- the corridor from West Virginia through Kentucky and Indiana, that corridor may pale in comparison to the growth happening along the I-85/I-20 path across the deep South. As that pattern fills in and continues back northward with increased activity in Tennessee, it nearly comes full circle. That is just fine with development advocates like Billy Joe Camp, former director of the Alabama Development Office, and now co-founder of site selection consulting firm World Business Advisors, based in Birmingham, Ala.
      "That circle is filling in nicely, but there's plenty of room left in the South for additional factories," says Camp. "I think Hyundai will have a location, and a couple more companies from Europe will be looking to the U.S. and probably the South for locations. What those companies are looking for is people who can be trained, and the area is proof that it can be the case here."
      As of early November, the Hyundai location mystery was the source of fevered speculation, with one Hong Kong newspaper reporting that Alabama is going to be the choice. Camp isn't counting any chickens just yet.
      "First of all, I'm not personally working on that project, and if I were I'd have to say I can't discuss it," he says. "I think there's a lot of enthusiasm in Alabama about their chances, as there is in Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee. So Hyundai and their locators are doing a good job of keeping everybody excited. It will be a good project wherever it locates."
      Camp points out that while his new firm, co-founded with Michael Johnson, is focused on helping companies locate anywhere, the South would be attractive to anybody, not least because of its energy costs.
      "The Southeast is blessed with an abundance of energy supply and very reasonable pricing," he states, adding that the Midwest, while having slightly higher electricity costs, is still quite affordable. And he sees some interesting developments on the energy horizon.
      "We're seeing a number of gas-fired electrical plants being built, most of them coming in as peaking operations," he observes, "but some of them have the capability of 200 to 400 megawatts, which in my book is a little bit more than just a peaking operation. That's good, if we don't become too dependent on one source of energy. I like to see a good mixture of gas-fired and coal-fired, good safe nuclear, and of course everybody would like to have all the hydro they would need."