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Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

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Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#41

Post by maxerickson »

wafflesraccoon wrote: post #30
rcchen wrote: post #5

Oof unfortunate that Detroit missed the cut, wonder why that happened; they seemed reasonably competitive from an outsider's perspective.

I assume Detroit has a lot of the same problems that St Louis has, they are both great little cities with an up and coming tech industry but hiring skilled talent and conniving them to move to the area is a nightmare.

Oakland county to the north of Detroit and Washtenaw county to the west of Detroit are two of the wealthiest, most highly educated counties in the country.

And the cities surrounding Detroit have a lot less problems than the city itself.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#42

Post by pyrophane »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #21

What's the point of announcing your candidate cities? Seems like it's only there so that the two or three cities they're really considering have to throw loads of tax breaks at them.

That is probably the entire point of making it a competition. Make the cities compete against one another. Perhaps once a city is a finalist it’s leaders get together and say “we’ve made it this far. What can we do to close the deal?”

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#44

Post by rpiguy »

It seems interesting that Amazon is not terribly concerned with the cost of labor. Several cities and states on that list have very high labor costs (Boston, New Jersey, etc.)

Good to see they are more concerned with talent and infrastructure rather than just bottom line costs.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#46

Post by phkahler »

chollida1 wrote: post #3

Nice to see Toronto on the list, though game theory suggest that we're only here because having a Canadian Candidate has the potential to have all 3 levels of government involved rather than just state and city. I'm not really sure how to go about handicapping the finalists. Given the current political climate, Toronto is interesting because it's the only city that gives Amazon some escape form the US government. You…

Detroit fits most of your criteria but has fallen off the list. Perhaps we already have enough rich guys in town:

http://michiganradio.org/post/who-owns-downtown-detroit

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#47

Post by dominotw »

chollida1 wrote: post #3

Nice to see Toronto on the list, though game theory suggest that we're only here because having a Canadian Candidate has the potential to have all 3 levels of government involved rather than just state and city. I'm not really sure how to go about handicapping the finalists. Given the current political climate, Toronto is interesting because it's the only city that gives Amazon some escape form the US government. You…

> escape form the US government.

Curious what specifically would be different between Canada and USA polices towards amazon.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#48

Post by rainbowmverse »

onychomys wrote: post #24

I'm surprised to see Miami make the list, since they're going to have so much work to do over the next 50 years to deal with rising sea levels. I'm not at all sure that the city will still exist in its modern form in 2050, and surely Amazon is planning that far out too.

Maybe they see an opportunity to be the first major tech company with a headquarters powered by tidal generation.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#49

Post by rdtsc »

gshakir wrote: post #23

Three candidate cities are in the same metro area (DC). * Montgomery county, MD * Northern Virginia * Washington DC

I don't see DC happening though. Not enough land to build. Traffic is a mess.

But wouldn't be surprised if they pick NoVA.

Not sure much about MD, I think VA traditionally had a more favorable tax structure.

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