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Comment by uxp100 | Hacker News Reader

> In both cities, the company said it wanted to attract top talent from area universities. But Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Eau Claire are homes to some of the state’s lesser universities, and it was unclear why these graduates couldn’t simply drive down to the Racine plant to apply for jobs.

What? Eau Claire is 260 miles away from Racine. Green Bay is 150 miles. An Eau Clare location can attract people who want to stay near Minneapolis. And the Downtown Milwaukee location is a more desirable place to work to Milwaukee metro residents than out in Sturtevant, home of that one Amtrak stop.

You can't put a 4 square mile factory downtown, but I'm not sure why all your engineers have to work at the factory.

Also, lesser universities? They mean not Madison. But if you're ruling out Madison (maybe they figure a Madison to Milwaukee commute is reasonable), they seem like good choices. Maybe La Crosse lost out to Eau Claire because of proximity to Minneapolis?

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Agreed; Milwaukee has many good schools. No top-tier research universities but MSOE, Marquette, and UW-Milwaukee all have strong STEM departments. Plus, Foxconn isn't hiring a bunch of PhDs, they're hiring engineers (and not nearly as many engineers as people seem to think), so it's unclear why access to a research university would matter. Other than some of the more asinine claims Foxconn/Walker have made (e.g., self-driving trucks... does Foxconn even have a self-driving research group let alone a real self-driving project?)

Also, Racine really is driving distance from Milwaukee. The southern suburbs literally border Racine.

The factory is a dumb idea, but this is not the reason why.

There is a confluence of political and economic factors at play, I suspect. Yes there are siting logistics, water supply, electric, labor pool, etc. But also: You don't go to Madison or to downtown Milwaukee to find potential Republican voters.

The vast majority of Republican voters in WI live in a ring of suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee. Yes, some rural counties are also red, but the absolute numbers of voters there is tiny. Go to suburban MKE, you hit a sweet spot of attractive economics for FC and possible political impact for state Repubs.

Southeastern Wisconsin as a whole only has 2.1 million [0] of the state's 5.7 million residents as of 2014. 600k of that is Milwaukee itself.

[0] https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/population/southeastern.htm

It's not like everything outside of Madison/Milwaukee is deep red. The only deep red counties in Wisconsin are extremely sparse. Kenosha County, for example, is mostly rural but was split almost exactly down the middle on Clinton/Trump (fewer than 300 votes between the two), and that was a rather extraordinary swing to the right for that county

Parent's observation that the WOW counties determine the statewide offices and electoral college vote allocation is absolutely accurate.

WOW meaning Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington? Those counties make up a little over 10% of the state's population. I agree that they're important, and I agree that it makes sense to campaign there because they have higher population densities, higher voter turnouts, and more swing voters than the deep red exurban counties. But it's misleading to claim that they include the vast majority of Wisconsin's Republicans, as the GP comment did, or that they're the main factor in election outcomes. In 2016, for example, the 8 percentage point decrease in Milwaukee's turnout rate compared to 2012 was probably a bigger factor.

> But it's misleading to claim that they include the vast majority of Wisconsin's Republicans, as the GP comment did

Oh, I misinterpreted the parent post's comment. Yeah, that's not true.

2016 was strange across the ballot in Wisconsin. Clinton was not a Wisconsin-friendly Democrat. The 2018 and 2020 elections will be interesting to watch. In general, it's a good rule of of thumb that getting things just right in WOW is one path to victory. There are other paths, of course, depressed turnouts being one of them.

I'm kinda confused. The author was wondering why they were having satellite engineering offices at all, when people could just drive to Racine (Driving from Eau Claire to Racine and back is 500 miles, I think the author didn't look up where these places are.)

You seem to be suggesting these locations are a political favor. But one is downtown (not suburban) Milwaukee, and the others are 150+ miles from Milwaukee. Not in that Charlie Sykes listening suburban ring of Milwaukee.

And anyway, the factory itself is near suburban Milwaukee so why would a downtown engineering (sales/business?) be a favor? And I'm not sure, but Racine is probably the least conservative county that touches Milwaukee.

Madison to Racine would have been a tolerable commute had Walker not killed the high speed rail.

Eau Claire is a nice place to raise a family, but that's not a selling point to recent college grads. Engineers in Wisconsin live in the Chippewa Valley, the Fox River Valley, Milwaukee, and Madison. That's about it.

Sorry, I think I'm missing something. Eau Claire is in the Chippewa Valley?

Yes, sorry. Eau Claire/Chippewa Falls/Menomonie are communities in that area.

Right, I know. You are saying Eau Claire is a nice place to raise a family, but that's not important to NCGs. Then you're saying most engineers are there (in addition to Fox River valley and the cities). Mostly a little older folks then I guess?

As a sidenote, what kind of firms are up there? I'm familiar with madison and milwaukee, and know some companies in the Fox River Valley, but am not real familiar with Eau Claire and the surrounding area.

Eau Claire area has Cray Inc, Intel, Jamf, and others.

It was also billed as assembly line workers.

    >“If, six months ago, you asked me, what would be the mix of labor? I would pull out the experience that we have in China and say, ‘Well, 75 percent assembly line workers, 25 percent engineers and managers,’” Woo said. But “now it looks like about 10 percent assembly line workers, 90 percent knowledge workers.”

At ~6500 fewer assembly line workers. It's not helping Milwaukee nearly as much as promised

Notes:

1. the percentages changed because the total numbers dropped. I.e., it's not like there's going to be a ton of white collar jobs. It's more like there aren't going to be a ton of jobs, period.

2. And even then, this is a Foxconn representative who has every incentive to mis-characterize. They're basically just saying whatever they think is best to say at the moment. Not even 3 months ago they were pushing hard on an ad campaign about manufacturing jobs. Then the projected manu salaries dropped and now they're saying that the avg salary will be higher because we'll hire so many tech people. All while hoping (1) gets lost in the exchange.

OTOH, wouldn't FoxConn just hire any qualified person who applied from anywhere? they're not limited to UW grads or even Wisconsin residents.

Tax breaks perhaps?

Any qualified person who's willing to move to the Milwaukee area. If you're not from Wisconsin and you're willing to move out of state after graduating, of all the places you could move to, why on earth would you choose Milwaukee? I like Milwaukee, I went to UWM for undergrad, and I might have stuck around after graduating if the job market were better. But if I weren't from Wisconsin (and especially if I were from somewhere with a warmer climate), I don't think I'd even consider it.

You can pay people less if they already live in Wisconsin, very few people want to relocate to rural Wisconsin.

1. That would destroy the whole point of the plant, which was to create jobs for down-on-their-luck Wisconsites.

2. If you're not from Wisconsin, why would you move to Wisconsin? There's nothing wrong with Milwaukee, BTW. Nice city. But there are dozens of other nice low-CoL cities in the USA, many with nicer weather and many still in the Midwest.

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