Industry recruiters should take a cue from auto meltdown - Memphis Business Journal:

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Marion, Ark. has chased the automobile industruy aggressively forseveral years. But now the city is shiftinbg gears to cast awider net. Auto assembly plants remaij a viable industryto pursue, unlike the apparel manufacturing industry, but the recession has brought a soberinhg reality to places like Marion and Blue Springs, When economic development efforts are too narrowly focusec on a specific industry, a community’s livelihoofd hinges on catching that one big fish.
And, once its fortunes remain tied to the relative health of that Blue Springs, located just outsidd of Tupelo, won the coveted Toyota sweepstakes in Februaryy 2007, getting word that its industrial megasite woul d become home for Toyota Motor Corp.’s $1.3 billiomn Highlander SUV assembly plant. Part s suppliers to Toyota made subsequent announcementssayintg they, too, would be locating parts facilitiez nearby to service the Toyota mother plant. As the priced of oil, and gasoline, skyrocketed to unprecedented levelsin 2008, Toyota decided to producd its hybrid vehicle brand Prius at the Blue Springs planf instead.
Then, the plant’s opening was delayed as new car salexs slowed and the auto giang saw profitsslide 27% in the fourtg quarter of 2008. And now with the you have to wonder if production will startin mid-2010 as Toyota has said, or if another announcement is coming. The bottom line is that Blue Springs, and the investmentr made by Pontotoc, Union and Lee counties to lure the have little control over what Marion was in the running for theHighlandee plant, and still has the Hino Motors Ltd. parts planrt that employs about 500, down from a peak of 750. But Mariomn is now looking to recruit a variety of differenf industries to its RailportIndustrial Park.
Both communitiess won, and we expect Toyota’s presence in Blue Springes will serve that economty very well for yearsto come. But puttingy your eggs in one basket comes with a If the focus istoo narrow, the price of lost opportunitiesz comes to mind. Those developing new and futures megasites inthe Mid-Souty should remember there are plent of different fish that those nets can