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Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

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Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#551

Post by scarmig »

appstateguy wrote: post #542
scarmig wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is one bad election from making it legal to discriminate against LGBT communities and racial minorities. North Carolina is already there. That's a nonstarter.

Your comment is ignorant of both the past and future trajectories of the voting populations for both Texas and North Carolina. NC has only become "far right" since 2010. Prior to that it's legislature was controlled by democrats since 1990. Increases in hispanic and latino populations within Texas could turn it blue within the next 20 years. It is very short sighted thinking to think this won't change.

I know plenty well about Southern politics, having worked as a staffer on multiple Southern campaigns.

As an alternative, Amazon can choose states that don't currently discriminate against potential employees.

Both of those states have positive trajectories (as well as Georgia!) But one bird in the hand is worth... Well, one bird in the bush.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#552

Post by maxerickson »

swerling wrote: post #540
maxerickson wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electorally DC is less relevant to national politics than any house district (I was replying as you trimmed DC from your list). Which would be the next unit to analyze, as the statewide population doesn't impact house elections all that much.

Sorry about that. Put it back in the post under the list.

I wasn't bothered about it, your comment was new still, adding that was the laziest way of making the sentence still make sense.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#553

Post by elif »

williamsmj wrote: post #368
drumttocs8 wrote: post #249

Amazon would have the greatest impact in Atlanta. You could argue that Atlanta is the economic, cultural, and geographical center of the Southeastern United States. It has the busiest airport in the world and is a major rail hub. There are already dozens of major corporations headquaratered in Atlanta. There is no shortage of talent, with a top-5 engineering school in Georgia Tech. Yet there are things missing which…

Atlanta, Raleigh and Dallas are all in states whose statewide electorate makes them a governor's veto away from passing "religious freedom" laws that would make hiring difficult. Maybe it would be good for Atlanta, but I don't think Amazon would risk it.

Georgia has some of, if not the most, employer-friendly right-to-work laws in the country.

you can essentially hire and fire anyone you like for no cause with no notice.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#554

Post by Spooky23 »

GVIrish wrote: post #477
dghughes wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me sports stadiums being built millions spent for rich professional sports teams. I'm not into sports at all it seems unusual to build what to me seems like a church for worshippers of team X. I'm all for being active but professional sports these days seems like they are a religion.

Agreed. My thing is, if a sports stadium is gonna be built with public money, it should belong to the public and the team owner should have to pay rent and/or revenue share. Otherwise, why should a billionaire (or group of wealthy people) get a taxpayer-funded stadium for them to print money with?

Stadiums generate a lot of construction jobs, a lot of billable attorney hours, operational revenue to the locality and state/federal dollars for infrastructure.

At worst, political people and relatives are members of LLCs that are owning real estate.

Basically, it lets politicians be gold-givers. That means political capital, which is as important as cash is to a billionaire.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#555

Post by [deleted] »

drumttocs8 wrote: post #249

Amazon would have the greatest impact in Atlanta. You could argue that Atlanta is the economic, cultural, and geographical center of the Southeastern United States. It has the busiest airport in the world and is a major rail hub. There are already dozens of major corporations headquaratered in Atlanta. There is no shortage of talent, with a top-5 engineering school in Georgia Tech. Yet there are things missing which…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#556

Post by midnitewarrior »

paxy wrote: post #530
epmatsw wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I’ve heard, there’s a bunch of mostly unused land south of the football stadium that has been slowly being bought up over the last year or so. Obvious speculation is that it’s either Amazon or someone betting that Amazon will want to buy a big chunk of land near downtown...

Would be a pretty big slap in the face for all other "contestants" if it turns out that Amazon intended to move to Atlanta all along and this whole thing was only for publicity and leverage.

20 "finalists" are there to make the legitimate candidates become hyper-competitive. It's the way to extract the most incentives from the levels of government involved.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#557

Post by femto113 »

chao- wrote: post #392
femto113 wrote: post #386

My money is on one of Nashville, Indianapolis or Columbus with Pittsburgh as a dark horse. Amazon is going to be looking to build a major campus (say 5-10 big buildings) right in the center of town (as they've done here in Seattle) and that's just not feasible in expensive cities like LA, Boston, NYC, Chicago or DC. Denver is too far west, Miami, Atlanta and Raleigh too far southeast. Newark and Philadelphia don't ha…

>There's no way Seattle and Dallas are going to form a family What does that mean? My top five (unordered) guesses are Raleigh, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Columbus.

Boeing contemplated it but decided on Chicago instead. I think it's a cultural thing, the cities have very different and not particularly compatible personalities. Anecdotally in I've never known anyone choose to leave Seattle for Dallas, and Amazon is going to have to convince hundreds if not thousands to do just that.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#558

Post by nerfhammer »

gjmarsh wrote: post #283
wbl wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Columbia and NYU and Cornell Tech don't make the list? Newark is a borough.

Agree. I work in the area. Beyond universities, the amount of talent that goes through Newark, from NJ suburbs into NYC, every day is incredible. I would think many of those people would love to shave 20-40 minutes off their commute and stop paying city taxes.

ah but then the commute is dramatically worse for people living in LI or CT, cutting you off from that labor pool.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#559

Post by rayiner »

ashelmire wrote: post #340

Part of me would love to have a big tech / infrastructure company like Amazon in Philly. But I take serious issue with the idea of the city paying millions or billions to bring them here, promising years of tax breaks (a free ride), and the tightening of an already very tight real estate and rental market. I don't think my fellow Philadelphians should have to pay to bring a company here that's just going to hire peop…

The fact of the matter is that cities in the U.S., with respect to each other, are in a race to the bottom. There is nothing they can do about it: the Constitution mandates an unrestricted internal market with no barriers to the free flow of goods and capital between states. That means that companies will go wherever they can get the best deal, and there is no way for state and local governments to restrict that movement.

Cities that aren't named New York or San Francisco can either get with the program, as the southern states have been doing, and benefit from the growth, or they can resign themselves to moribund economies and irrelevancy. If they're smart, they'll do what places like Ireland and Switzerland have done, which is offer low corporate taxes and recover the difference with higher taxes on individuals.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#560

Post by smileysteve »

epmatsw wrote: post #296
drumttocs8 wrote: post #249

Amazon would have the greatest impact in Atlanta. You could argue that Atlanta is the economic, cultural, and geographical center of the Southeastern United States. It has the busiest airport in the world and is a major rail hub. There are already dozens of major corporations headquaratered in Atlanta. There is no shortage of talent, with a top-5 engineering school in Georgia Tech. Yet there are things missing which…

From what I’ve heard, there’s a bunch of mostly unused land south of the football stadium that has been slowly being bought up over the last year or so. Obvious speculation is that it’s either Amazon or someone betting that Amazon will want to buy a big chunk of land near downtown...

There are a few other places if the Gulch for some reason fails; each with many more problems (but likely more room to expand)

- Westside (superfund site from concrete operations)

- Jail/Aarons Amp

- Union city area.

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