As jobs and talent have flocked to American cities, once-prosperous rural communities are finding their primary competitive advantages are desperate residents w

As jobs and talent have flocked to American cities, once-prosperous rural communities are finding their primary competitive advantages are desperate residents willing to work cheap, and local Republicans ready to extend tax breaks and slash regulation. American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for "locally undesirable land use," listed the "least resistant personality profile" as: "longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest," "conservative," "Republican" and "advocates of the free market."