W

herever McKinley Conway goes, things seem to happen. It's fitting, then, that the prolific Site Selection publisher's latest effort is entitled Where the Action Is: Development Centers Today and Tomorrow. As its title implies, Conway's 43rd book evaluates the current development landscape and ponders the future.
     "Presumably, leaders of expanding firms will seek to go where the most exciting action is," Conway writes. "The purpose of this book is to provide some assistance in the selection of early targets and staging of priorities."

      Where the Action Is begins with a global analysis of national developmental strengths. Using recent data, that evaluation individually ranks world nations on 22 factors: seven indicators "of current development strength" (e.g., labor force, and corporate expansions); 11 indicators "of infrastructure to support future growth" (e.g., economic development agencies, container ports); and four indicators of "open[ness] to ideas and visitors seeking information" (e.g., global events, travel destinations).
     Conway then computes composite scores, respectively ranking the U.S., China, the UK, Japan and France as his top five. Those results, however, come with a caveat:
     "This provides an approximate measure of the relative development potential of the leading nations of the world at this time," Conway writes. "[It] is not an exact science!"

McKinley Conway

     At that point, Where the Action Is shifts perspective from the macro to the micro level. The book includes about 70 projects profiled in 2005-06 in The SiteNet Dispatch. Those reports, in turn, are part of Conway Data's New Plant Database.
     "Our company has been reporting and tallying new industrial plant construction for some 50 years," Conway writes. "We believe our database provides a very good indication of where the action is now [and] has some significance in guessing where the action will be tomorrow. It reflects the location decisions made by the world's leading firms following study by their corporate staffs."
     Those decisions, Conway notes, often underscore the growing site-selection significance of subsidies.
     "[They] reveal very strikingly how important the incentives offered by governments have become," he observes. "Where once private corporations didn't want the government to be involved in any way, the majority today shop around for incentives and subsidies."
      Many of the book's project reports also accentuate the global economy's boundlessness. For example, there's European Aeronatic Defines and Space Company's US$2.6-billion, 2,000-employee expansion in India; French firm LaFarge's $90-million plant in Indonesia; and Luxembourg-based Arcelor's $4-billion investment in Brazil. Then there's the revival of Britain's famous MG line — led by a Chinese firm that picked a plant site in Oklahoma City.
     That kind of boundary-breaking adds to the author's large development legacy. Conway, for example, founded the first-ever magazine focused on corporate real estate and economic development; founded two precedent-setting industry associations — the International Development Research Council (IDRC) and the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC); and created the first development-focused Internet site, SiteNet, back in 1983.
     Where the Action Is fits that mold. Mac Conway continues to create his own action.