Alexis Elmore updates us on a new movie studio in L.A.; aerospace-grade titanium manufacturing coming to North Carolina; and lens production in India from Germany’s Carl Zeiss.
Los Angeles is far ahead of other cities by number of international engagements.
Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau
Led by Deputy Director and former Site Selection chief analyst Max Bouchet, the team at the Truman Center for National Policy last week unveiled the Multilevel Diplomacy Map, an interactive tool that documents more than 3,000 unique engagements by local government leaders — including mayors, governors, public agencies and senior staff — with local, regional and national governments around the world. The Truman Center focuses on effective sub-national diplomacy by cities, regions and states. A quick sort by city shows that in the past five years Los Angeles leads all cities in the nation (and most states) with 210 engagements, followed by San Antonio with 40; New Orleans with 24; Seattle with 23 and Houston with 22.
Among the analysis published by Bouchet in Site Selection was a three-part series co-authored with former senior editor Patty Rasmussen in 2014 and 2015 about the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which eventually collapsed after three years of negotiations, with some of its aims now pursued via the EU-US Trade and Technology Council. Foreshadowing Bouchet’s future work on the power of smaller, local actors, the third part of that series was titled “Looking Out for the Little Guy.”
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New economic status analysis finds 14 of Appalachia’s 423 counties are competitive and three have reached attainment.
Map courtesy of Appalachian Regional Commission
Each year, the Appalachian Regional Commission applies an index-based classification system to compare each county in the ARC region with national averages to understand how counties are performing. Analyzing three-year average unemployment rates, per capita market income, and poverty rates, each one of Appalachia’s 423 counties is then classified within one of five economic status designations — distressed, at-risk, transitional, competitive, or attainment. “In fiscal year 2025, 77 counties are designated as distressed, 103 as at-risk, 226 as transitional, 14 as competitive and three have reached attainment,” says the ARC. Those three are Shelby County, Alabama (outskirts of Birmingham), and Cherokee and Forsyth counties in Georgia, both part of the Atlanta metro area.
Earlier this year, Illinois-based AIT World Logistics acquired Netherlands-based Global Transport Solutions Group, an international freight forwarder specializing in time-critical marine spare parts logistics like those needed for parts on ships like this one. “GTS and its more than 600 teammates across 16 locations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, serve over 2,000 ports around the world,” the announcement stated in February. “The GTS network also includes nine consolidation hubs totaling more than 45,000 square meters [484,390 sq. ft.] of warehouse space.”
