"...they've just decided to tap those resources."
I thought that logging was essentially banned because of that stupid spotted owl? The enviromentalist wackos want to breech the dams.
The resources are:
A)A wide variety of relatively cheap land in a wide variety of environments, mountain, coastal, college town, woods, etc. etc.
B) Plentiful water supply and in some cases geo-thermal.
C) Pockets of a fairly well educated population that can be paid less than they would in, say L.A. or SF or NYC.
D) Larger pockets of fairly cheap construction labor