"I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes"
If you were gonna throw out a spitball estimate for the 3 numbers:
1) Tax impact in city vs burbs
2) Cost of land / lease in city vs burbs
3) Company payroll/benefits
What would you guess the ratio of #1 to #2 + #3 is?
Their total value is irrelevant; what matters is the ROI you get from increasing or reducing each of them. I submit that taxes offer the lowest ROI of the three from the perspective of most businesses (but I admit that paying taxes to be in a good location can deliver ROI).
So as a business manager you ask: what do we lose by exiting this tax jurisdiction and what do we gain? And most importantly, what's the ROI? If my margins are tiny (say, most retail and restaurants) then saving 2% of my budget per year on taxes can mean the difference between a 4% and 6% ROI if the other factors remain equal.
That may sound like a small difference but it is not: it is as large as the spread between equities and bonds at most points in time (so if I'm only going to make 4% why be in business at all?) Why not just fire all my employees, use my budget to buy Walmart corp bonds, get 4%/year, and not have any management headaches or employer liabilities?
As economists say, most decisions are made "on the margin"; so the total amount that goes into tax is not as relevant as how much can be gained or lost by shaving off tax liability vs other kinds of costs.
If you were gonna throw out a spitball estimate for the 3 numbers:
1) Tax impact in city vs burbs
2) Cost of land / lease in city vs burbs
3) Company payroll/benefits
What would you guess the ratio of #1 to #2 + #3 is?