Venture Capital

I think it has a little to do with Venture Capital being a relative new thing from the technology boom and most of the technology companies were in those areas.  I think it could be about geography appeal and overall population size as well.  If a new startup tech company wanted to get going in Omaha and hire 500 software developers it would be tough going and even tougher to get 500 of them to relocate to sunny Omaha.

So, I'm not sure that I agree with you that the rest of the states are sitting on the sidelines as much as it we're just doing different things.  Manufacturing and other industries are thriving in many middle states and the coasts are sitting on the sidelines.

Either way though I do agree with you the more we all get engaged in different industries the better we are all because it more efficiently utilizes our workforce as a nation.

We outsourced our middle class prosperity through government programs that incentivized people to send those jobs overseas.  The tide is shifting in the USA and a big chunk of these jobs are already starting to come back. 
Everybody likes to hold up China's GDP growth and prosperity, but it's American prosperity that was outsourced to China at the expense of the American workers.  If we didn't outsource to them the way we have the past several decades then their economy would still be in the toilet and ours would be booming.

Outsourced yes.  Government programs... not really.  It was more the "new" Wharton school of business line of thought teaching all their MBAs the benefits of offshoring.  And as for your last sentence... lol tell me how many articles of clothing or consumer electronics you've bought lately that were made in the USA.  There are a few I can think of, but it takes some head scratching.

Short of extreme tariffs, which are another can of worms, there's not much that will change that behavior.  China has lower wages in general, but also is pretty much the wild west when it comes to worker rights and worker safety.  We protect our own here in the U.S. but that also means our employees cost more.

China is starting to raise those standards, but then of course Vietnam is the new China for offshoring.  Or South America.  Or whatever is next...

I do agree that offshoring was all the rage for many years and in many instances it was tolerated because everything was cheaper.  However, the reasons for it being cheaper can and do change and often depend on the government.  For example I can hire the slave labor in China and save money on the labor, but I also save money on taxes and such.  However, I increase my costs in shipping and due to the quality often lagging my prices end up being lower.  Kind of like all the walmart junk.  It's quite literally junk, but it's the only thing I can buy now.

I have some first person experience with offshoring myself.  I ran the Network Engineering team at a $5B teleservices company.  We had ~60,000 employees corporate wide and outsourced over half of them to India, Jamaica, and the Philippines.  The labor rates were dirt cheap, but we also had to spend a lot of money (millions per month) to get the voice services over there, but it still made financial sense.  Every company in America was racing to outsource all of their customer service calls over seas to save money.  However, I'm sure you guys all recall the backlash about 10 years ago due to how terrible the service was and the language barrier from accents was hard to understand.  We ended up shifting our model to a zero outsourcing model because the customers demanded it and the savings wasn't worthwhile.
So with manufactured goods, it's still the same type of thing where every company has to look at the total cost savings and compare it to domestic.  Yes, there are greater expenses from labor and facilities here, but there's also better treatment of employees and higher quality.  Now with a 15% decrease in taxes for corporations it moves the needle yet again in favor of bringing things back.  I'm not naive enough to believe that every job is coming back, but I think it is naive to also believe that none of them are coming back.  The needle shifts and companies on the bubble will come back because the majority of American businesses do truly want to manufacture their products in America and with a Federal government in place that is more friendly to business they will do just that.

I definitely agree with you that it won't be for everyone.  I guess my overall point is that by moving the needle Trump will make it more appealing for businesses to come back.  Not all, but a significant enough percentage that it will have an impact.

Not just China but everywhere else too.

I read an article last night that more than 25% of Canadian based companies are considering moving their operations to the US because of tax laws and potential changes to NAFTA.
There were some downright funny headlines from countries in Europe saying the tax cuts were unfair because it would effect goods purchased from Europe.  lol