Southern United States
47% of new US manufacturing jobs land in Sun Belt; Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona attract two-thirds of national growth with business-friendly policies.
The Southern United States captures the momentum that defines 21st-century American economic geography. From 2021 to 2024, 47% of nearly one million new manufacturing jobs landed in Sun Belt states—Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona leading. Two-thirds of national manufacturing growth now concentrates in just five states: Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Utah. Dallas created more manufacturing jobs than any other metro; San Antonio grew 23.7% in five years.
The formula is explicit: right-to-work laws, cheaper electricity, accelerated permitting, lower taxes, and housing construction that accommodates workforce growth. Phoenix alone has 33 million square feet of industrial space under construction—more than any other U.S. market. TSMC's semiconductor plant, Rivian's Georgia EV factory, Intel's Arizona expansion: the investments choose locations where friction is minimized.
Immigration reinforces the advantage. The South now has more immigrants than any other region, providing workforce growth that aging populations elsewhere cannot match. Corporate headquarters follow: Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Nashville, Phoenix, and Houston ranked as the top five relocation destinations between 2018 and 2023.
By 2026, the Southern United States will likely continue attracting what the North and coasts cannot retain: manufacturing investment seeking scale, speed, and cost efficiency. The question is whether Sun Belt growth eventually encounters its own constraints—water scarcity, infrastructure bottlenecks, housing affordability—that Rust Belt cities have already resolved.