ABSTRACT
Over the past 20 years, inter-local competition has become especially fierce, as globalization has expanded the battlefield beyond regional and national borders. This particularly has been the case in battles for prestigious Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), such as motor vehicle assembly plants. Communities within the Southeast Automotive Core (SEAC), encompassing Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee, have proven especially adept in this environment, attracting of eight of the eleven light vehicle assembly plants built by foreign motor vehicle manufacturers (i.e., the ‘New Domestics’) in the USA since 1994 (see Figure 24.1). 1 Such success certainly merits closer examination.
