If you built a large manufacturing facility 1/2 mile form that strip mall it would be bustling with secondary economic activity. This is the issue of our time.
- the government must get out of burdensome regulations and taxes
- the EPA must be brought to heel
- the local workforce must be culturally stable (i.e. plants moved away from Detroit MI and Camden NJ because the workforce become drug addicted, violent, and had little nuclear family structure)
- the goods manufactured must have a viable market, either domestic or overseas
- our government must adopt a sane form of "protectionism" that does not allow other governments to dump cheap, slave labor goods in our markets while they tariff the crap out of our goods sold to them
But the larger problem right now is that the global economy is in a Recession, and is bordering on a collapse that will make the Great Depression look mild by comparison. The Central Banks are largely responsible, but so are the world governments and markets that are based on the Central Bank Ponzi Scheme