This migration didn’t happen by accident. It was driven by specific policy choices. States such as Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina and Texas have aggressively courted manufacturers by promising business-friendly policy environments. You can see this on several different fronts. Florida, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina, all built more housing per capita than all of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, New York and Massachusetts.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.