Philly isn’t the entire country. The drive to increase market returns started about 40 years ago as pensions were replaced by 401k accounts. Traditional rates of return were no longer acceptable. As for corporations moving facilities around, they are moving to other cities, not rural areas. A lot of the movement is to right to work states because of union issues. As for the states where these plants are moving to: they aren’t everyone’s idea of paradise. Lots of rampant unregulated development might be financially favorable for the corporate bottom line, but it also changes the lifestyle of those those places. For people like myself who prefer miles of wide open spaces, those places are being ruined as desirable places to live.