There is an Enterprise Zone that spans the border of two counties. 400 acres of it are in our county and Ford is going to build a Blue Oval City there. It's a 5.5 billion dollar project that's supposed to be up and running in 3 years. It will provide up to 21K construction jobs and 5800 permanent jobs when open. They will be building Ford's new line of electric trucks as well as doing research on electric motor and battery technology. It's supposed to be the most advanced plant they own.
That will be interesting to watch unfold, simply as there are both military and space uses for new battery, as well as superconductor, technologies.
It's a double edged sword. Ours is a large rural county with a small population. New local businesses seldom last more than a year before closing. Those that are open have a problem finding employees and many are having limited hours of operation because of this. Those higher paying jobs will pull even more employees away from small businesses. Most people commute to Memphis for work with a 1-2 hour drive. Before my wife retired, she racked up over 100 miles a day going to work. People move to our county to get away from the problems associated with big cities. This new workforce will have to be comprised of people moving here from other states to fill those jobs. How will that change as we transition from rural to populated, economy driven. Progress will have to be carefully managed by the governing agencies to insure that transition is viable. It's not gonna be all wine and roses.
Everything old is new again. Company towns were quite prevalent around the turn of the century. It was in the 20’s when Ford seeing the need for rubber basically took over a rain forest in Brazil and built “Fordlandia” a self contained utopian city that produced what Ford needed, and became its own community for the Ford workers.
I've seen a documentary on Fordlandia. Very interesting, yet ultimately unsuccessful venture. You have to hand it to Mr. Ford though. He was always looking for ways to bring things inhouse and make things better, cheaper.
If these car companies had remained self contained things might be different. You think Henry would have had a “chip” shortage?
But he did deal with wood, rubber and steel shortages, after Uncle Sam forced him to divest all materials companies for antitrust reasons.