>So you have somebody who is going to build a factory and they pick a nice piece of low value rural land. But once there is a factory, people build housing for the workers and stores and so on, and now you have a whole town centered on the factory and the value of the land goes up. But the reason the value of the land goes up is because of the factory.
Factories usually push down the value of land. Who wants to be next to a smokestack?
>Anything that doesn't actually care about its location but attracts other investment would keep getting moved
Which is all very well, except there basically isn't anybody who doesn't care about location and attracts investment. Location is important for everybody.
> Factories usually push down the value of land. Who wants to be next to a smokestack?
Factory workers. Then service workers who sell their food and cut their hair. Then doctors and nurses and police and firefighters and so on who are needed wherever people are concentrated. How do you think places go from being an empty field to a town?
> Which is all very well, except there basically isn't anybody who doesn't care about location and attracts investment. Location is important for everybody.
Then why do Boeing and Ford and GE build their factories in rural areas instead of in Manhattan?
>Factory workers. Then service workers who sell their food and cut their hair.
Except factories need workers too, and workers need haircuts so it doesn't make sense for a factory to be built in the middle of nowhere where there are no workers.
>How do you think places go from being an empty field to a town?
Rarely.
>Then why do Boeing and Ford and GE build their factories in rural areas instead of in Manhattan?
Boeing's factory is within easy commuting distance of Everett. GE's is in Flint. Neither one was built in rural Iowa or the Mojave.
They're not built in Manhattan because that would be prohibitively expensive given the amount of space they need.
Factories usually push down the value of land. Who wants to be next to a smokestack?
>Anything that doesn't actually care about its location but attracts other investment would keep getting moved
Which is all very well, except there basically isn't anybody who doesn't care about location and attracts investment. Location is important for everybody.