reprints Image: Heritage Images via Getty Images At a time when overall manufacturing employment is dipping , North Carolina has bucked the national narrative, and used its recent industrial surge to supercharge local real estate development. Last year — a record-breaking one for job announcements and investment, according to Gov. Josh Stein’s office — the Tar Heel State landed massive development deals in the up-and-coming aerospace, data center and rare earth sectors. Two monster new manufacturing facilities — a $5 billion JetZero aircraft factory and a $500 million manufacturing site for data center hardware from global manufacturing and engineering firm Jabil — underscore the state’s growth in booming areas of the national economy. The JetZero plant alone, once it hits its stride, is predicted to employ 14,500. “North Carolina was first in flight,” Stein said during the JetZero factory’s groundbreaking , referencing the Wright brothers’ maiden flight in the Outer Banks in 1903. “And we will be the future of flight.” That isn’t the state’s only potential investment in the future. In November, Vulcan Elements agreed to locate a $918 million rare earth magnet factory in Johnston C
