West Point, Georgia

Drew Ferguson IV is a 42-year-old dentist whose family has lived in this town, population 3,300, "since God put us here." To be precise, the family arrived eight generations ago. Ferguson went off to the University of Georgia, then on to dental school, after which he came back to West Point. He and his wife, whom he met in college, have four kids. A year ago, Ferguson was elected mayor. "There's a reason I live in West Point," he says. "I love it. There's a sense of place here." No doubt, but West Point is located in what might also be considered the middle of nowhere. It's pinched between I-85 and the Alabama border. Atlanta is a good hour's drive away.

West Point today isn't the same town Ferguson grew up in. Textile company executives used to live here. But when the textile industry collapsed in the 1980s, the victim of foreign competition, they moved away. Thousands of jobs were lost. A few small technology firms took up some of the slack. But the high-tech bust of the late 1990s proved to be another job killer. "We survived without a federal bailout," Ferguson says sarcastically. Now, while much of America wallows in the gloom of a recession, there's great joy in West Point. "West Point will have more economic growth in the next 24 months than anywhere else in the country," Ferguson boasts. And he may be right.

KIA has come to town. The Korean automobile manufacturer is building a huge assembly plant, which will employ 2,900 workers when it begins turning out cars a year from now. KIA suppliers will employ thousands more nearby. When KIA accepted applications last winter--only online, not in person--43,000 people applied. Just last week, a 2.5-mile, four-lane road that runs along the 2,200-acre plant site was completed. Naturally it's called KIA Parkway. A Korean barbecue restaurant opened a year ago, as Koreans began moving into West Point. It was formerly a Pizza Hut.

KIA donated one of its cars to Georgia governor Sonny Perdue, who is said to drive it occasionally. Ferguson drives a KIA Sorento. "I had to buy mine," he says. In the election last year, Ferguson ousted Billy Head, who is 30 years older and was a two-term incumbent. Ferguson says the voters in West Point "were ready to take a new direction. We have a chance to completely reinvent this town. For an old textile town, we've really done pretty well." Ferguson recently hired a second dentist to join his practice.

West Point has entered the auto industry's alternative universe. Foreign car manufacturers, the so-called transplants, have been setting up shop in the South for a quarter century now, starting with the plant that Nissan opened in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1983. It's still operating. Nissan added a second plant in Canton, Mississippi, in 2003. Two years ago, Nissan moved its American headquarters from southern California to Cool Springs, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.

The auto production numbers in the South are staggering. A dozen years ago, Alabama produced zero cars. Now it turns out 750,000 annually at Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai plants. Three years after Mercedes opened its SUV factory near Tuscaloosa in 1996, it doubled the size and output. A Honda plant halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta went on line in 2001, and the next year the company spent $450 million to expand it, adding 2,000 more workers.

The southern auto industry mocks Detroit. The transplants make money and aren't asking for help from Washington. The recession has curtailed car sales temporarily, causing the transplants to slow production. But they are expected to expand again once the economy recovers. Volkswagen is currently building a plant outside of Chattanooga, which will produce 150,000 cars a year. But VW, with ambitious plans to increase its American sales, obtained an environmental permit that allows it to make 512,000 autos at the site. Volkswagen, by the way, has moved its main American office from Auburn Hills, Michigan, to Herndon, Virginia.