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Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

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Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#451

Post by jabbanobodder »

product50 wrote: post #241
devmunchies wrote: post #108

Silicon Slopes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Slopes - Population > 1,000,000 - Serviced by 2 great universities (UoU, BYU) - Utah is a top 5 state for # of Unicorn Companies From the wiki I shared: "The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development allows a variety of grants and tax incentives to companies willing to either relocate or expand their enterprise" Note: I live in Seattle, not Utah.

I know you want to pitch SS but saying UoU and BYU are great universities is just wrong. Indeed, attracting talent in Utah is going to be one of Amazon's biggest challenges if it opens an office there.

Staying close to SLC is the only way this can happen.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#452

Post by mleonhard »

jkimmel wrote: post #443
Animats wrote: post #367

OK, what are the options? Here's the list of the top 50 North American metro areas over the desired 1,000,000 population.[1] This gets down to the Nashville, TN area, at 1.8 million, so it's not the full list. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba are probably out, both for political reasons and being islands. Mexico is probably out given the current administration's positions. San Juan is on an island and too remo…

As a former Orlandoan, I would pull Orlando from that list based on public transit. Transit in Central Florida is basically non-functional, and not likely to change anytime soon. The region is entirely car-centric, and there is a strong cultural bias against public infrastructure of any kind. You can surely look up a map with lots of bus lines drawn across the Orlando core (Lynx), but the service is so remarkably hor…

Roads are public infrastructure.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#453

Post by euyyn »

unethical_ban wrote: post #387
euyyn wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I would disagree with the "it's clearly unethical, undesirable behavior" part. I just don't think it's clearly good nor clearly bad.

I think it isn't in theory (jobs! tax revenue from families!) but how often do these things play out?

No idea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#454

Post by brfox »

Animats wrote: post #367

OK, what are the options? Here's the list of the top 50 North American metro areas over the desired 1,000,000 population.[1] This gets down to the Nashville, TN area, at 1.8 million, so it's not the full list. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba are probably out, both for political reasons and being islands. Mexico is probably out given the current administration's positions. San Juan is on an island and too remo…

A few points not yet mentioned: - Increasing the diversity of the Amazon culture by having an HQ in a new city will help Amazon understand the customer better... the last election has shown how little we all understand each other. - Could Amazon be planning to eventually split the consumer and cloud divisions into two companies? - Is this an opportunity to flip a red state to a blue state by getting a lot of tech workers to be employed in a red state? Which cities/states are closest to flipping? Atlanta, Pittsburg/Phil, Detroit, Cleveland, Phoenix, Austin/Houston?

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#456

Post by dragonwriter »

wdr1 wrote: post #455

> In choosing the location for HQ2, Amazon has a preference for: > * Metropolitan areas with more than one million people There are 10 cities in America with one million people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

> > * Metropolitan areas with more than one million people

> There are 10 cities in America with one million people:

Metropolitan areas are not the same as cities. By one definition (MSAs), there are 53 such areas with a population over 1 million.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statist...

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#457

Post by nogbit »

Also, any city willing to participate must have the following...

Top of the line medical centers, big ones! Fantastic sports teams, many of them. Amazing universities, state college required. Seasons, a little of everything for everyone. A small traffic problem, so it can get worse. Cheap real-estate, so it can get more expensive. A port, you know, the ones with access to shipping lanes. Land for more suburbs, so you can run out of land.

I'm sure the list is longer for the reasons why Silicon Valley and Seattle are what they are, but that's a start.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#458

Post by sanderjd »

ceejayoz wrote: post #153
sanderjd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand (and largely share) the annoyance about these sorts of tax breaks, but as a software developer, it seems obvious that having an Amazon headquarters in my city would result in lots of job opportunities for me - not just at Amazon, but at other software companies that locate nearby over time due to the increased concentration of workers. So I don't understand your skepticism at the "job creation" part.

I don't think a megacorporation should be having its jobs (which it was going to create anyways!) subsidized by the taxpayers of relatively small, desperate localities engaged in a race-to-the-bottom against other similarly small, desperate localities.

I don't disagree at all! But that is a larger point than the question of whether it will improve the job market in that locality for people with the right skills: it definitely will. What I'm saying is that I don't think it is wise to downplay the job creation aspect when arguing against things like this. You have to make the counter-argument despite the job creation potential.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#459

Post by prostoalex »

chrishacken wrote: post #222
grecy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And anyone wonders why the USA does not have money for healthcare, higher education, high speed rail, etc. etc. I am in West Africa and everyone continually asks about the corruption. At least here it's up front and honest. The guy with the AK-47 just wants $5. In the USA, it's the guys in suits getting billions.

The thing is, those tax cuts are largely offset by income taxes that those employees bring in, along with all of the $ that having a huge corporation like Amazon would bring into the area. It's not corruption, it's business.

In the US the cities don't get to collect personal income taxes, though.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#460

Post by sanderjd »

ceejayoz wrote: post #418
nambit wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are better ways to generate it, then I'm sure they'll come to the fore. I agree that the practice is unfair and the government should pass some laws preventing it, but for the cities themselves, there's no better way to generate such job/tax growth. If you've seen Amazon's crazy hiring for the past few years, you wouldn't doubt that they'll create a lot of jobs.

Most of those jobs would've still been created without tax breaks, though. These incentive packages are a race to the bottom, transferring taxpayer money into major corporations with dubious returns.

This is true in absolute terms, but not true at the level of each locality. Those jobs will still be created without tax breaks, they just likely won't be created here (for nearly everyone's definition of "here"). I totally agree that these incentives are yucky, but I don't think down-playing the benefits to the "winning" locality is the right way to argue against it.
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