Survey Says Midwest States Rank High for New Facilities Plans

For the fifth year in a row, Area Development’s editors have asked the consultants who work with industrial companies, as well as with economic development agencies, to take a survey similar to the one administered to our corporate executive readers.

Many of the new facilities projects being worked on by the respondents to our 2008 Consultants Survey are slated for the South Atlantic (13 percent of the projects) — North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia — and South (also 13 percent) — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi. These regions are followed by the Midwest (12 percent) — Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin — and the Middle Atlantic (12 percent) — Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania (Chart J). Although only 7 percent of the Corporate Survey respondents planned new facilities for the Middle Atlantic region, the many more financial and information technology firms represented by the responding consultants might account for the difference in response between the two groups of survey-takers when it comes to activity in this region. Learn more.