No place like home: big corporate headquarters moves have been few and far between, but some experts think relocations may be on the upswing as corporate eyes look for new ways to cut costs.

Plants Sites & Parks, May, 2002 by Johnson, Clint

When Boeing left Seattle for Chicago last year, the corporate headquarters move seemed an anomaly. Corporations just don't leave "home"--it's easier to lobby governments for regulatory and tax relief and demand rent concessions than it is to pick up and move. Though at least one site selection consultant believes the Boeing move may be the start of a relocation trend, evidence suggests that corporations grow--and stay--in place.

Thomas Klier and William Testa, two economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, published an article in the Chicago Fed Letter that shows the nation's 20 largest metro areas accounted for 65 percent of all large corporate headquarters locations (2,500 employees) in 1990 and 2000. Klier and Testa found that each metro, with the...

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