Word: tupelo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Tupelo, Miss., is five hours by road from the closest seaport. It's two hours from an international airport. And it's nearly an hour's drive from an interstate highway. If you were trying to get to any of those places, you wouldn't start here. Tupelo is isolated in the hilly, northeastern corner of the poorest and least educated state in the union. If you've ever heard of Tupelo, it's probably as the birthplace of Elvis Presley. It seems an unlikely magnet for foreign investment and export employment. But that's exactly what it has become...
...city's nighttime population of 36,817 more than doubles on workdays as manufacturing jobs draw employees from six counties. The Tupelo area has attracted 44 new factories, and 150 existing plants have expanded in the past two years, creating 10,000 new jobs. Companies from 16 countries now manufacture in the region. Exports range from precision valves to computer chips to 75% of the world's steel golf-club shafts. Tupelo has even attracted one U.S. factory back from Mexico. And other Tupelo companies compete successfully against imports, making everything from crepe paper to couches. (The Hometown...
...Tupelo? The city has only one significant geographic advantage: proximity to the Tennessee Valley Authority's system of hydroelectric dams, which offers electric rates 20% cheaper than the national average. But other towns in several states can offer the same deal. Public officials in the Tupelo area lure industry with low taxes, free road and rail connections--even subsidized rent and low-interest loans. But much of America engages in that kind of smokestack chasing. Tupelo has a low cost of living and cheap, nonunion labor. So does South Carolina. So does South America...