It sits pretty well on regional transportation hubs (intersection of I-35 and I-80) but more importantly has that 'nexus' feel looking out the next 20-40 years where I can see how Ames/Ankeny sit relative to the DSM area doing a bit like what's going on down on the I-4 corridor in Central Florida. 

I`d Like to hear what fellow Ontario residents think are the next good cities and regions to invest in. 

@Jon Klaus  Jon as we know this is all regional I am always amazed at how cost effective your builds are in Texas I have a 2.2 mil spec going in Charleston 2600 sq ftt and that's going to come out at 300 a foot. not including the lot of course.. which was 570k. in this instance no pilings but we did elevator 20k .. what does it in the historic district of Charleston is all the custom items you have to buy siding roof windows architecture 60k in hard scape landsape on a 4k sq ft lot.. that type of thing. when we are out of the BAR heavy duty areas we are building at 100 a foot or so.. 

Shop around to local/regional banks and credit unions.

Im interested in west NC/ east TN areas - its a region I would like to eventually relocate to.Came across 2dayblueprint.com (Jason Palliser) in some of my searches. 

Our markets have been growing here are there should be lots of opportunity for sales in the region. 

I think that is why Google & Facebook are both spending hundreds of billions in the suburbs of Huntsville opening regional facilities.

What types of business are opening in similar towns in the region?

Within our region there are countless small municipalities and neighborhoods, since all real estate is local I'm sure most of us aren't intimately familiar with all the mini-markets within our area.

Florida is a specialized market with mostly regional carriers and only a few national carriers.