David H. Murdock is offering hope to forgotten people in a forlorn town. The billionaire owner of Dole Food Co. promises to revive Kannapolis, built by a textile mill and rocked in 2003 by the state’s worst-ever layoffs. Nearly $1 billion of investment will build a sprawling research campus, he says, at the site of the now-silent mill. A hundred companies will come. Plus 35,000 jobs. Politicians have rallied to support him. Residents hope he succeeds.

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