Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#41

Post by amorphid » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:22 AM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #15

rmason wrote: post #2

This really burns me. The Times compared the metro population of Grand Rapids (1 million) to Detroit's population (670,000) in order to disqualify the city in their first round. But metro Detroit has a population of 4.5 million so the Times either was sloppy with their criteria or they deliberately snubbed Detroit. Detroit may be a dark horse in this competition but with Dan Gilbert going all out to win I don't think…

Detroit seems like a fantastic choice. Both Toronto and Chicago are fairly close. All the great Michigan and Ontario schools can be tapped and the city has tremendous potential to grow. Hopefully, they'd be nicer to their local population ala Facebook/East Palo Alto.

Speaking only for myself, "fairly close" is basically as far away as really far away. If I have to move, there's not much of a difference between moving 100 miles and 3,000 miles. If I were planning to operate in one city because it was fairly close to another city, I'd probably just go to the fairly close city instead (or somewhere else altogether).

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#42

Post by codingdave » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:22 AM UTC

And those of us in Utah say... "Wait, no, we have Universities here, and could totally support Amazon." Then we think about the urban sprawl of SLC, and look at the outdoors and think about how crowded it has gotten already at Arches and Zion and say... "Yes, OK. Denver sounds good."

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#43

Post by avenoir » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:24 AM UTC

nether wrote: post #31

Please no. Leave Denver alone.

I have a strong suspicion that Denver will become the next San Francisco in the next 5-10 years.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#44

Post by ruffrey » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:26 AM UTC

Poorly researched.

They kicked Sacramento off the first round "1 million or more" yet there are 2 million in the greater Sacramento area, strong job growth and local economy, affordable housing, and decent tech chops (ok not the Bay Area by a long shot). The SMA has no detectable boundaries between cities; they just blend together.

I wonder how many other cities were eliminated due to poor research.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#45

Post by mrep » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

I was thinking about this today and realized something about tech/finance/entertainment... hubs.

The best way to get one is by having major players in the industry set up shop there. Cities hope the next big tech company will be in their city, but lots of the employees that switch companies to help startups grow come from top companies and it is way easier to get people to switch companies if they don't have to move.

Seattle has become a good tech hub due to amazon and microsoft.

I think whatever city wins this will have a massive long term tech hub boost because of it. This will probably be many times better for a cities economy than some factory.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#46

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:28 AM UTC

I know they eliminated Pittsburgh right out of the gate, but I think it has a bunch of things going for it. It's one of the few places where housing is cheap (but a pretty beautiful downtown) but young tech workers would love to live: tons of stuff to do but lots of knowledge workers with CMU. Biggest obvious issue is no direct flights to Seattle, but if Amazon built a headquarters there it seems like it would be easy to reach critical mass to add more flights

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#47

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #45

I was thinking about this today and realized something about tech/finance/entertainment... hubs. The best way to get one is by having major players in the industry set up shop there. Cities hope the next big tech company will be in their city, but lots of the employees that switch companies to help startups grow come from top companies and it is way easier to get people to switch companies if they don't have to move.…

Is Amazon looking for a tech hub or a place for administrative functions.

Recall Microsoft moving all of their admin stuff to the Midwest somewhere.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#48

Post by bradleyjg » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:34 AM UTC

virtuallynathan wrote: post #17

I'm surprised to see Philadelphia eliminated so quickly, it ticks almost all of the boxes, and has a very large number of engineering schools (UPenn, Penn State, Drexel, Temple, Princeton, Rutgers, etc). It's transit is better than many of the other cities, and it has 2 major development plots in the city with existing full tax abatements. Not to mention its proximity to NYC and Washington, DC via Amtrak (~1h20m to N…

I said on the last thread we had on this that I think PHL is the weak link. It's not a great airport in terms of runways and other facilities and is at capacity.

A plan to expand it a few years back was killed by local opposition. There was supposed to be an alternative plan developed after that, but I'm not sure whatever happened to it.

I don't know what the time frame on an expansion would be or if the city would be willing to consider it, but as it stands the airport is a real Achilles heal.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#49

Post by pj_mukh » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:34 AM UTC

amorphid wrote: post #41

pj_mukh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detroit seems like a fantastic choice. Both Toronto and Chicago are fairly close. All the great Michigan and Ontario schools can be tapped and the city has tremendous potential to grow. Hopefully, they'd be nicer to their local population ala Facebook/East Palo Alto.

Speaking only for myself, "fairly close" is basically as far away as really far away. If I have to move, there's not much of a difference between moving 100 miles and 3,000 miles. If I were planning to operate in one city because it was fairly close to another city, I'd probably just go to the fairly close city instead (or somewhere else altogether).

If I work in Detroit, I can visit my family in Southern Ontario or Michigan over the weekend. This makes a huge difference.

Re: Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You

#50

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

ruffrey wrote: post #44

Poorly researched. They kicked Sacramento off the first round "1 million or more" yet there are 2 million in the greater Sacramento area, strong job growth and local economy, affordable housing, and decent tech chops (ok not the Bay Area by a long shot). The SMA has no detectable boundaries between cities; they just blend together. I wonder how many other cities were eliminated due to poor research.

Their view of metro area is pretty limited.

The Albany-Schenectady-Troy MSA is about million people, and it's barely a top 50 market. There are definately a lot of other markets in a bunch of different places that can compete for this.