Ya'll stay down here, you hear?

A good read in this week's Newsweek about "The Second Auto Industry" of foreign carmakers who have invested heavily in plants in the American South over the past two decades. It's kind of bizarre to read about Southern Senators voting as a bloc (there's a jarring throwback) against the Big 3 Bailout, but the story of how companies like Toyota and BMW have transformed the economies of small Southern towns is remarkable.

I was skeptical of what sounded like the article's boosterism - I'm not particularly inclined to see Southern right-to-work laws as real economic solutions - but the consequences of foreign automakers' (writer Daniel Gross tags them "The Little Eight") investment in Dixie communities are stunning. Most notably, job creation: Gross cites a figure from the Alabama's Development Office that these foreign auto companies supported a payroll of $5.2 billion in the state last year, and quotes a DC economist that "every job in auto production supports five other jobs in the economy in steel, tires, rubber, programmers and auto dealers."

And those jobs are in much better shape now than those in the Detroit footprint. Obviously, the lack of legacy costs gives Toyota, BMW, et al a financial edge over their Big 3 competitors (not to mention the huge investments made by these Southern communities to attract them in the first place), but other innovation factors, like plants designed with production flexibility, have put them on more stable footing.

The most striking anecdote in the article cites the case of the San Antonio Toyota Tundra plant, which has laid in fallow for the past few months. Rather than than terminate the plant's workers, however, Toyota has kept them on and offered their services to the city. According to Richard Perez, president and CEO of the city's Chamber of Commerce, San Antonio has put the Toyota employees to work on beautification projects. I can't shake that remarkable image- a 21st century WPA, but funded by a foreign firm!- out of my head.