[quuquuquu]

Plenty of things could be manufactured or coded in these areas. Cheap housing and materials in general mean you could make a really awesome hacker house or even factory for physical goods.

Of course the real problems are:

1) VCs don't invest here

2) A startup's success is usually based on its ability to sell itself (using networking contacts) to a larger corporation

3) who then REALLY don't want to have an office in Nowhere, Alabama

If they did want to do it, they would have done it already. Lord knows they have the money.