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Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

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Re: Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

#51

Post by didgeoridoo »

psychometry wrote: post #31
throwaway427 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transit, continued investment, world class museums, and honestly a pretty hip city with a lot of activity in the center, not unlike Seattle. Also lots of millennials moving there for its low cost of living and ample jobs. Minus museums, this could be said of plenty of other cities that are in places with less wacky politics. Museums don't mean a thing. Low cost of living as a requirement means a relative low…

It might be good for a red state to get an HQ, though, since educated people will for once migrate there instead of away from there.

Except the net migration flow in recent decades has been from "blue" to "red" states, not the other way around... do you have any source for the claim that those moving are disproportionately not "educated" people? https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/04/24/the_po...

Re: Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

#52

Post by fipple »

psychometry wrote: post #31
throwaway427 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transit, continued investment, world class museums, and honestly a pretty hip city with a lot of activity in the center, not unlike Seattle. Also lots of millennials moving there for its low cost of living and ample jobs. Minus museums, this could be said of plenty of other cities that are in places with less wacky politics. Museums don't mean a thing. Low cost of living as a requirement means a relative low…

It might be good for a red state to get an HQ, though, since educated people will for once migrate there instead of away from there.

LOL. There are tons of educated people who move to Texas. Ever heard of Texas Instruments?

Re: Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

#53

Post by poulsbohemian »

RubenSandwich wrote: post #6

Ruth Graham, a writer for Slate, commented on this this morning[0]: " A sword was brought & Bezos said “Cut HQ2 in half. Each of you can have part of it.” “Please don’t split HQ2,” the true host city screamed. “Go ahead, cut it in half," the other city said. Bezos pointed to the first city. “This is the real host. Put the headquarters here.” " It makes me wonder if this is another negotiation tatic by Amazon to get t…

>It makes me wonder if this is another negotiation tatic by Amazon to get the final city to shell out more incentives.

Especially given that they are ramping up offices in Vancouver, BC, Northern Virginia, they have a presence in Austin thanks to Whole Foods, and probably other locations I'm forgetting off the top of my head, it has seemed to me like this "HQ2" business is somewhat of a red herring. Even if they do anoint some city as "HQ2" they've already put their eggs into more than one basket.

Re: Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

#55

Post by chrisco255 »

thebradbain wrote: post #35
throwaway427 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transit, continued investment, world class museums, and honestly a pretty hip city with a lot of activity in the center, not unlike Seattle. Also lots of millennials moving there for its low cost of living and ample jobs. Minus museums, this could be said of plenty of other cities that are in places with less wacky politics. Museums don't mean a thing. Low cost of living as a requirement means a relative low…

The writing is on the wall — Texas will turn blue sooner than later. Dallas is a liberal stronghold in Texas, and in absolute numbers turns out more for Democrats than any other city in the state, including Austin (percentage-wise Austin wins by +5%, I believe). Unlike Austin, which is gerrymandered in the state legislature, every single state/county/city official in Dallas is a Democrat. Dallas is also a gay rights…

Ft. Worth, right next door, is not though. I don't see this happening, by the way. Abbott is up by 15-20 points in the polls this year. And Texas is just different, culturally, than these other states.

You can have your LGBTQ anti-discrimination and TX still remain red, BTW. They're not mutually exclusive.

Re: Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

#56

Post by dmode »

Amazon is playing cities like chump. I had a sense in the beginning of this process that Amazon doesn’t really want to build a HQ2. They just want to open another office. Most large tech companies have large campuses across multiple cities. This exercise is no different than that. But Bezos branded it HQ2 to maximize handout. I also predict that they will end up hiring far less than the 25k projected. There is a recession coming in the near future, which could result in Amazon looking for cheaper developers globally.

Re: Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities

#58

Post by jakelarkin »

xrd wrote: post #21
thebradbain wrote: post #8

I’m biased, but I’ve had a feeling in the beginning it was always going to be Dallas in some capacity: 1. DC area may have three potential cities, but Texas is the only other region that has two cities being considered 2. DFW airport is one of the US’s busiest airports, and American Airlines is headquartered there, so you can get a direct flight to anywhere in the country in 3 hours tops. Amazon already has multiple…

Can you elaborate on the Texan business environment? This is often lauded by Texas politicians. What makes it different and possible, since it obviously isn't being duplicated in other cities.

some familiarity with running a small business in Ca. : Every little thing your business does potentially has some permitting, licensing fees, taxes, and/or approvals necessary at the local, county, or state levels, with lots of complicated form filling needed and a DMV level of service & timeliness in response. If you have a physical presence you're doubly screwed, because that potentially ropes in local land-use, health and labor departments, which can take months to turn around an approval. Its basically impossible to keep in compliance unless you have dedicated lawyers and accountants looking at each project.

My understanding is that Texas doesn't have a lot of that or at least its minimized.

The reason "business environment" can't be duplicated or reversed because it's like a legal equivalent of tech debt code rot where also a large group of ops employees (politically influential bureaucrats) earn their life's income on the busy work the system creates.

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