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

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

#111

Post by tonglil » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 4:54 AM UTC

sumeno wrote: post #16

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…

I agree that this is sloppy reporting. Amazon said they want metropolitan areas that have a million people, not necessarily cities with a million.

> ...keeping those metropolitan areas that have had the best job growth over the last decade, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Metro areas that have actually lost jobs (Tucson; Birmingham, Ala.) and those that have grown more sluggishly are out of the running.

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

#112

Post by heimdall » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 4:57 AM UTC

conorgil145 wrote: post #106

Osiris wrote: post #102

I live in the Denver metro area and I think this assessment is pretty spot-on. The only downside is rush hour traffic around downtown can add 15-20 minutes to the commute. However, these is a significant light rail presence. I would say quality of life is great for anyone that likes to do anything outdoors: fishing, skiing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc. And there's a pretty strong community of software engineers h…

I lived in Denver for the past 2 years and agree with this assessment as well. The light rail has expanded lines in recent years to the airport and I have read that the plan is for that expansion to continue to eventually link Denver and Boulder. Amazon could build their huge complex anywhere in that area and workers could take public transportation to the office.

I graduated from CU-Boulder in 2009 and have lived in the Denver-metro area ever since. I could very easily see Amazon drawn to the Boulder-Longmont-Lafayette triangle if not in Denver proper.

Lots of growth here in the last 5 years especially. Many long-time locals are complaining about the cost-of-living going up, though.

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

#113

Post by in_cahoots » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:02 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.

Sacramento was kicked off for poor job growth, not population. Every city on the list met the population criteria.

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

#114

Post by boulos » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:04 AM UTC

I'm surprised none of the comments here highlight the time zone benefit that one of the east coast options would give them. Having a large group of employees still based in the US, yet able to sensibly overlap with Europe is a huge deal.

In the same way that Portland is too close physically, Denver doesn't gain you "anything" for timezone diversity. They might offer the sweetest financial package, but it still seems like a wasted opportunity.

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

#115

Post by dasil003 » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:06 AM UTC

delinka wrote: post #68

bryanlarsen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philly was dropped by the "job growth is strong" rule, which is also drops many other cities which would otherwise be fully qualified. So the question really is why would Amazon have that rule and how willing are they to bend in it. Why would Amazon want that rule? Wouldn't it just mean there's more competition for employees? It strikes me as the type of rule put in to ensure their secret favorite gets chosen.

“More competition for employees” translates into higher costs.

Are you purposefully reiterating the GP's point? Because that's exactly why he's questioning it.

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

#116

Post by dionidium » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:22 AM UTC

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…

This is a good time to remind folks that arbitrary political borders are, well, arbitrary and that all serious city-to-city comparisons should be done using MSA numbers.

A failure to understand this leads to all kinds of ridiculous impressions and conclusions.

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

#117

Post by jaggederest » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:33 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #40

jaggederest wrote: post #27

I think a lot of cities would be well advised to steer clear, Amazon would have a pretty crazy distortion effect. It might make sense in Denver, but I can't imagine them fitting into any smaller city (~3m). I expect it to end up in a former rustbelt or midwestern city explicitly eliminated in this article in the 'strong job growth' phase. Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Philadelphia.

Denver only has 700k in the city itself, and ~2.7M in the metro area.

Yeah I'm saying that, for example, the effects on Raleigh would be pretty overwhelmed at 2m, if Denver could even handle it at 3.3m. Contrast with Minneapolis at 3.8m, Dallas at 7.3m, and Chicago at close to 10m on the money.

I'm using the CSA definitions because I think that's a better way of comparing wildly different cities.

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

#118

Post by volkl48 » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:43 AM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #48

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 b…

All the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic airports are busy and have non-ideal airport layouts.

That said, Philly is still moving forward with their expansion/improvement plan and fundamentally is one of the few major airports in the region that can practically expand without insurmountable environmental/political opposition.

If PHL is handicapped in some way, I would say the ground transportation experience is one of it's larger problems.

- It has a parking crunch so it runs out of parking, or you wind up with a situation where even if you're a high-earning person, you're still going to have to park in economy and lose a bunch of time with a slow bus to the terminal because the garages are full.

- The Airport Line is infrequent, so transit doesn't work for anyone who values their time.

- Not unique to Philly, but the traffic situation on the highways means Uber/Lyft don't solve transportation issues to the airport unless they put the HQ in South Philly.

- Switching terminals is a bus or walk, no people-mover or the like. There are at least post-security connections.

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

#119

Post by bsder » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:44 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

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 eas…

Yeah, I'm a bit surprised at this.

Pittsburgh is probably really close to ideal. I can't really think of much of a downside.

It has a lot of universities, and the programmers are quite good (the ex-CTO of Modcloth? had a video where he pointed out that the Pittsburgh office was quite a bit better than the SV office). Your factory workers will be out toward the airport and your knowledge workers will be downtown. It's a very old city, so it is quite a bit more pedestrian friendly than most. And, because it's old, it has a really good arts scene. And Pittsburgh has a woefully underutilized airport.

The only downsides are weather: 1) Lack of sunlight--Pittsburgh is almost as bad as Seattle in that respect and 2) Winter--Northeast winters SUCK.

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

#120

Post by dbish » Sun, Sep 10, 2017, 5:45 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 lived in Philly for grad school in comp sci. There's a reason why software folk do their grad school (or undergrad) at one of the places you mention and then quickly leave. No tech scene, the city always felt unsafe, and there's nothing spectacular about the city other then it's close to some better cities (NYC, DC). Amazon needs to find a city with some tech scene already and with an interesting community for employees to come join.