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Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

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Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#601

Post by dragonwriter »

nyokodo wrote: post #598
Retric wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon and those workers will still consume city services. City's don't make a profit on average, so while those workers may make above average wages it's unlikely to make up for the overall lost revenue. Picturing 1000's of workers is overblown. Amazon does employ a lot of people, but in a highly distributed fashion and their expansion is not going to be huge. On top of that these are all large city's where +/- a fe…

If +/- a few thousand workers isn't a big deal then why is it being made a big deal by all these comments? Obviously it's going to make an impact. My point is that the corporation and workers and associated economic multipliers will be adding a net positive to city revenue. If it wasn't going to do that I doubt hundreds of cities would be competing for it.

Direct employment numbers are direct revenues are easily, concretely associated with the deal, indirect infrastructure impacts are less in peoples minds, harder to concretely attribute and easier to cloud, and take a longer time to be palpable. Politicians overweight the former kind of measured (because they have more effect on political careers) and devalue the latter (for the opposite reason.)

Cities aren't actors, they are just abstractions; politicians are the actors pursuing Amazon.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#602

Post by gist »

wyattk wrote: post #370
gist wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> often to no benefit of the local population Not true. My first thought when hearing that a town not far from where I am made the 20 list was 'where can I buy property so that I can rent it to others that come as a result of the economic development and new desirability of the area'. Property values will increase and property tax will go up vacancies will be reduced. This would not happen for a smaller company that…

No net benefit of the local population. I forgot to include that one word, net . I admit it does make a difference, but perhaps not to the point where people will fixate on that and ignore everything else. I understand what you are saying, but these things can be quantified and accounted for in economic models. We can wave hands all day about "I think the economy would do this" but that is often the enemy of applied…

I am aware of what you are saying. However living in a place that is 'moving and grooving' because there is economic activity has benefits that simply can't be measured. For example you can live in a nowhere ghost town with little restaurants and nobody around and think you have it great. But just the same people with any ambition will move out of that area and leave it even more isolated. Empty main street.

If you try to quantify you will often come up short. And w/o knowing the exact numbers who knows. But much of it is for tax (credits) which they wouldn't get anyway. The places in many areas that are being offered have been vacant for years. So we are not talking about Manhattan when you look at Navy Yard in Philly. It has land because nobody wants that land. And it could take forever to get it occupied.

Economic activity where there is little currently and no prospects is all around good. In the case of where I live (within 20 miles of one of the sites) I am thinking 'wow if they locate there people will end up buying used houses where I am and property values will increase and then people will spend money and they will build more restaurants and things will all around be good. So maybe I will stay in this area and not move in that case'.

By the way Amazon has not invented this process. It's currently being done where counties compete against other counties for lesser known prizes. Very common you just never hear about it. In many cases the company moving has no intention of moving either. Welcome to the world of business and how it works.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#603

Post by BatFastard »

bluetwo wrote: post #588
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…

I would love to see Philly land it but let's be honest: They are going to put it in a better run city with less inherent corruption.

ok, using corruption as a premise, lets see who that eliminates. New York Chicago Newark Philadelphia Washington DC for sure Miami LA?

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#604

Post by reaperducer »

Woofles wrote: post #186
freehunter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's a massive list to have said they've whittled it down much, but I can see some misses. St Louis isn't there, Detroit isn't there, Tampa and Orlando aren't there, Milwaukee isn't there, Phoenix isn't there, Houston isn't there, Minneapolis isn't there, Baltimore isn't there. They put out far too big of a list of candidates, but they have apparently ruled out just as many major metro areas.

I'm fairly certain that given Target already has a hold of Minneapolis, there's no way they'd allow Amazon to move in on their turf.

Unless Amazon buys Target. Then they've got a whole corporate infrastructure already in place.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/amazon-will-buy-target-in-20...

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#605

Post by usaar333 »

quacker wrote: post #472
jamestimmins wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I hope they don't go to the obvious cities that already have high rents (New York, Austin, Chicago). They could make an enormous, positive impact on many smaller cities, or could do damage to already expensive ones.

> cities that already have high rents (New York, Austin, Chicago) I was curious about this. I live in Austin, and don't think the rent is particularly high there. I just wanted some data. Looking at rent prices on one website in particular ( https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Austin ) and using Austin as the baseline: Less expensive candidate cities: - Rent Prices in Austin, TX are 43.54% higher than in Columbu…

And TX lacks a state income tax, meaning disposable income will actually be higher in Austin than the numbers above imply.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#606

Post by PascLeRasc »

mbesto wrote: post #206
indescions_2018 wrote: post #75

Just visited Pittsburgh. There is indeed a renaissance happing in that town. The restaurant scene alone is phenomenal. And the addition of a FANG level HQ could cement its burgeoning international reputation as a destination. The idea is that CMU spits out about 200+ world class CS grads a year. If even 5% decide to stay in the area to start their own ventures. There would be potential for massive growth. the other d…

This. You also have Pitt which has a pretty decent CS degree. People are friendly. Sports is great. I believe Apple and Google already have fairly significant offices in Pittsburgh. If I was more liquid I'd be buying property in Pittsburgh.

Eh, as a Pitt graduate I can't really vouch for our CS degree. Most people I've talked to about it think it's actually getting worse recently, as we've hired more teaching professors who aren't good at teaching and not had too many upper-level electives. The program is also stuck in the Arts & Sciences school which puts a bit of a limit on how many CS classes you get to take. Where we really shine is biotechnology/medical devices.

Sports have been good, but the Pirates won't be anything to watch now that McCutchen's gone.

I love Pittsburgh and now is really a great time to invest in real estate here. Lots of places just outside downtown are really sprucing up like uptown, the North side, and Lawrenceville/Bloomfield.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#607

Post by rlanday »

rayiner wrote: post #559
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 move…

You're saying two entirely conflicting things here. You're saying "cities in the U.S., with respect to each other, are in a race to the bottom" (not that being well-run and having low taxes is a bad thing in my opinion...), and then you said New York and San Francisco don't have to play along, presumably since they're competing on value rather than price. I think it's obvious that Amazon's not looking solely for the cheapest possible city to locate in. I suspect they were never going to choose Gary, Indiana no matter how sweet the tax incentives were.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#608

Post by BatFastard »

mark-r wrote: post #589
ameister14 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's balanced by the increase in tax base from 50,000 jobs and investment of billions in the local community.

No it's not balanced, that was my whole point. Yes there will be an increase in tax base, but it won't cover the increase in expenses. If it does then it implies that the current businesses are overtaxed.

>If it does then it implies that the current businesses are overtaxed.

The "implication" is not obvious to the casual observer.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#609

Post by meddlepal »

lolsal wrote: post #546
dude01 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming Amazon is going to create an HQ somewhere in America, consider the two situations: 1) Current situation, they will eventually get a very large tax cut from wherever they select. 2) Hypothetical situation: local tax breaks are not allowed, Amazon selects a location and pays the local taxes that it avoided in situation #1.

You think small governments (states, or cities being 'small') having autonomy over how they tax themselves is a bad thing? There are more than two situations, or you're over-simplifying the effect of a massive company like Amazon moving to a city. A 'tax cut' does not mean they are contributing $0 to the local economy. I would guess (I'm not a city planner or anything like that) the overall economic impact of such a…

The European mindset to everything seems to be regulate, regulate and regulate some more.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#610

Post by chao- »

femto113 wrote: post #557
chao- wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>the cities have very different and not particularly compatible personalities

That was my read of the GP post as well, but it strikes me as odd. I have lived in both cities, and while I agree they have differences, I don't see that being fatal flaw to a business having a headquarters in each?

One could make same "different personality from Seattle" point for about half of the cities on the list. Consequently my interpretation is that it is one of the factors they are looking for, not one they are avoiding.

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