In the recent old days, negotiating issues for a new mill or plant site were simple...taxes, utilities, job services, and so forth. However, changing conditions result in changing needs.

Today, depending on location, there may be some other assurances you want, and if so, you will want to put some teeth in them (read: penalties). For instance, for the locales you are scouting, you may want some assurances that the schools meet and continue to meet certain recognized national standards.

Another issue may be the level of law enforcement protection afforded your facility and the likely communities of domicile for your employees.

There may be other issues in this brave new world that need to be addressed.

The point is, services that one used to take for granted in first world countries no longer carry implicit guarantees of continuance. For siting your facility in a given community, you may be able to extract a contract which makes your company whole if the community deteriorates to the point you can no longer attract a superior workforce.

The State of North Carolina is attempting to retrieve concessions given to Pactiv Evergreen at Canton, North Carolina since the facility announced its is closing. This argument works both ways. If the community becomes undesirable to the point you must leave through no fault of your own, you deserve restitution.

I think Nordstrom, formerly a tenant in downtown San Francisco, would agree with me.

Years ago, in first world countries, companies built "mill towns" to serve their employees. In recent decades, this has still been the practice for paper mills built in remote locations.

Sadly, some first world areas are reverting to conditions where either mill towns or restitution from the appropriate government entities is appropriate if the conditions become untenable for continued operations.

Jim Thompson is CEO of Paperitalo Publications.