Cities are great for industry. High local population means comparatively cheap wages or at least pressure for lower wages, public infrastructure means you don’t need to create a company town, centralized power means fewer politicians to bribe, and so on. You CAN put a tire plant out on a river somewhere, but the best engineers and the largest labor pool is going to be available nearby a major metro. Which by the nature of the way humans create metropolises will possess the infrastructure you want. Cities are a great facet of industrial and technical civilization. Just not in America.
