It feels like a cop-out to type this, but I think the unsatisfying-yet-obvious explanation is that capital follows capital, and at some point there was a compel

It feels like a cop-out to type this, but I think the unsatisfying-yet-obvious explanation is that capital follows capital, and at some point there was a compelling reason to put capital in all of those now-unstable places. Somebody at some time needed to build up industry in those places.