Dell Plant Search Update

With the NC Legislature meeting next week to consider whether to give as much as $200 million in incentives to Dell Inc., Guilford and Forsyth counties are prepared to fight over which will land the prized computer plant.

NC Gov. Mike Easley asked legislators to return to Raleigh on Thursday to vote on an economic development package for an unnamed major computer manufacturer.

Dell, the world's largest personal computer maker, has confirmed that the special legislative session is for incentives it wants before building a $190 million plant in the Triad. Easley said the plant would generate 2,000 jobs and a total of 8,400 jobs when suppliers and related industries are taken into account.

Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, said earlier this week it was interested in building in North Carolina, but didn't say where. Company spokeswoman Cathie Hargett confirmed Thursday that Dell is only considering the Triad.

Officials in both Guilford and Forsyth counties said they don't feel significant pressure to raise the bar on local tax incentives to land the plant.

More here.

BP Spinoff Picks Chcago Over Houston

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley took the bows this week when the petrochemical spinoff of oil giant BP PLC announced that it had chosen Chicago over Houston for its headquarters.

But it was Gov. Rod Blagojevich who sealed the deal with an offer of about $12 million in financial assistance to the new company, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

A final agreement on the amount of the subsidy has not been reached.The Daley administration isn't giving any financial aid to the new company, which last year had $13 billion in revenue, which would have made it the 14th-largest company in the Chicago area by that measure.

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K-Mart Relocation Update

Georgia may have to dig between the sofa cushions for change if it wants to win Kmart from its home state of Michigan.

The Georgia economic incentive package is about $28 million short of what Michigan is offering to keep the headquarters of the country’s thirdlargest retailer, according to state documents.
Georgia is promising Kmart about $17 million in incentives to lure its headquarters and about 1,900 jobs here, according to the documents. The incentives include tax breaks, job training and grant money. Michigan officials have crafted a $45 million package to keep the company in Michigan.

More here.

Richard Florida Update

If Richard Florida didn't know before, he has found out lately that no good deed goes unpunished. The huge success of his 2002 book, "The Rise of the Creative Class," and its economic prescription for declining cities - technology, talent and tolerance - has brought a backlash from both the right and left.

The one side accuses Florida, formerly an economic-development professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University and now on the faculty of George Mason University School of Public Policy, of having a "gay agenda" or an "arts agenda" and of undermining the Judeo-Christian foundations of our society. The other asserts that he has abandoned the working class in favor of promoting a group of elites.

And now, you know the rest of the story...

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Business Site Selection Basics

What are the essentials for a business to prepare for and undertake a successful site selection project? Click here to identify the basics of a good search.

Manufacturing Growth in the Near Term

U.S. manufacturing's recovery from the 2001 recession is likely to continue during the next three to six months but at a somewhat slower pace than has recently occurred, indicates the latest quarterly business outlook from the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.

The Arlington, Va.-based business and public policy research group's September composite index of future business activity stands at 75, down from an all-time high of 80 in June of this year.

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Medical Device Industry

The medical device industry may not grab as many headlines as the pharmaceutical industry and other subsectors of the life sciences field, but an argument can be made that it is the field's backbone.

While a few states dominate the industry, many others have taken the specializ ation route, cultivating niches. Estimates place the U.S. industry at US$43 billion in annual sales. With the aging of baby boomers, this sector figures to stay healthy.

Recent research by the Battelle organization shows the medical device and equipment industry is the largest life sciences subsector in the U.S., employing more than 320,000 at nearly 6,200 locations, with an average annual wage of $52,000.

Battelle, which released its findings as part of a comprehensive bioscience report at the BIO conference in San Francisco in June 2004, says just four states -- California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Pennsylvania -- have large employment bases. These states account for 38 percent of U.S. employment in the industry. California has 19 percent of overall U.S. employment with approximately 62,000 workers. Florida, New York, Indiana, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin have "sizable" medical device employment, according to Battelle.

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West Virginia's ED Strategy

Click here to read what it says.

Missouri's ED Strategic Plan Is Performance-Based

Looking for a good example of a performance-based strategic plan? Check out Missouri's plan here.

Are CEO's Paid Too Much?

Catch the poll summary here.

ATA Latest Airline to File Bankruptcy

Low-cost carrier ATA (ATAH) filed Tuesday for bankruptcy reorganization, part of a self-preservation bid that also calls for the No. 10 airline to hand off major operations in Chicago to discounter AirTran Airways (AAI).

Is there a solvent air carrier left?

More here.

Business Tech Spending Back

For the first time since the tech bust, businesses are starting to spend on technology projects that won't immediately save them money.

U.S. corporate tech spending jumped in September, researcher Gartner said Tuesday. That will help drive a 7% increase in worldwide spending this year to a projected $1.33 trillion, Gartner says. "Businesses have been reluctant to spend against the (weak) recovery," says Gartner computer analyst Martin Reynolds. "Now they're starting to invest."

During the downturn, most companies sprang only for tech projects that could quickly cut costs, including automating tasks. Now, they are considering long-term benefits.

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Design and Development Projects to Learn From

Nineteen outstanding developments from around the world have been selected as finalists for the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) Awards for Excellence competition, widely recognized as one of the land use industry’s most prestigious recognition program. Click here to find out who they are.

Barcelona: Learn from Her Place-Making Achievements

Barcelona is absolutely a world class city. From its architecture to its boulevards to its parks, it is a vast, diverse, center of culture and entertainment. It literally pulsates with energy. It is enticing. And it seems to play mostly to its citizenry, rather than to the tourist. We love it because of its great public spaces. Click here to learn more.

Who was the Matron of Community-Based Planning?

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What Makes a Place Great?

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U.S Businesses Taking Advantage of Troubled Japanese Companies

Today, the Japanese not only acknowledge the problem, they are welcoming workout honchos with open arms. Investors, led by bulge-bracket investment banks and U.S.-based private-equity firms, are buying record amounts of distressed assets in Japan, working out debt payments and restructurings with thousands of companies.

According to Ernst & Young, so far this year foreign investors have spent $14 billion buying nonperforming Japanese assets, up from $7.3 billion in 2003. "Last year was our biggest year ever in terms of investing in Japan, but right now is the peak," says Chol-Ho Kim, an executive vice-president at GMAC Commercial Mortgage Japan in Tokyo, a branch of U.S. auto manufacturer General Motors Corp., which has invested more than $1 billion in Japan's nonperforming loans. "The market is gushing with deals," says Kim.

So, how does this impact the flow of Japanese investments into the US in the near term. While this issue is not clearly in focus, it could mean more joint ventures and other strategic relationships between US and Japanese companies to strengthen the Japanese companies ability to peform in the US market. That could mean some new deals. It also mean that some Japanese investments in the US now, if they are not adding to the bottom line, will be in jeopardy. The sword could cut both ways.

More here.

New Economic Trouble Brewing in the Ruhr Valley

A new wave of layoffs looms in Germany's industrial heartland, and unions are mobilizing for battle Deep in the heart of Germany's Ruhr Valley, a column of 25,000 angry blue-collar workers and their families has taken to the streets of Bochum, waving banners and red union flags, beating drums and blowing whistles.

This scene has been replayed often in the past four decades as one wave of jobs after another has left the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland. This time, unions and workers are venting their anger against a massive restructuring announced by General Motors Corp. on Oct. 14 that will slash the company's workforce by 12,000 in Europe, including an estimated 4,000 jobs in Bochum alone.

"This is a tragedy for the entire region," says Horst Krüger, a stocky, 46-year Adam Opel worker from Bochum. "We had coal, and then the mines closed. Opel came and gave people jobs. Now I don't see how we'll be able to replace the 4,000 jobs Opel wants to cut."

More here.

What's New With MEMS?

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), tiny machines combining electrical and mechanical components and typically made on silicon are making some major headway. This has many economic developers excited about the prospect of new businesses and jobs tied to this budding technology.

Today, such machines can be combined with wireless technology to create so-called active radio frequency identification (RFID) tags or smart tags, which can not only sense, say, a movement, but also tell another machine wirelessly about it.

There's more, go here.