431–440 of 747 posts
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really feeling Chicago here. Big tech workforce that's almost purely finance... but the talent is there. Proximity to one of the largest airports in the world. Chicago is a major city with lots of culture, food, attractions, etc. The proposed sites are absolutely enormous and perfect for a huge mega-complex like Amazon would want to build. Relatively short flights to both coasts, since you're smack in the center…
Chicago is a major city with lots of culture, food, attractions, etc. Personally I love Chicago, and it's one of my favorite cities to visit in the US. And that's at least in part due to the food scene: Au Cheval, Cantina Laredo, Lao Sze Chuan, Petterino's, Wishbone, Star of Siam, Sushi Pink, etc. But... personally speaking I would not want to live and work in Chicago full-time for one big reason: the weather. It's j…
It's interesting how little culture figures in to this conversation. It seems to me that the North and the South (Canada aside) are drastically different in ways that will really matter to a lot of people. I don't work at Amazon, but my family and I would not feel fully safe or comfortable living in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia or North Carolina.
> my family and I would not feel fully safe or comfortable living in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia or North Carolina I'm a little surprised by this. You wouldn't feel safe? Why not?
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…
Philadelphia has a 6% unemployment rate. Don't you think HQ2 might drive that down some?
Here in Dallas, there has been a stream of companies moving headquarters in from out of state. Even though they are bringing their people with them, they wind up scouring the landscape for new workers. Toyota relocated and brought 3200 people along but they are still hiring 1000 locals.
I'm disappointed that Detroit isn't on the list. My money is on Nashville or Denver. Hm... I wonder if how hard it would be to set up a decentralized blockchain pool to wager on the winner...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some context that might further illustrate OP concerns: -Philadelphia already has major funding issues despite several unpopular taxes like the wage tax and soda tax -Recently went through a huge gentrification cycle spurred in part by a 10 year tax abatement given to new construction or rehabs -The city has already given huge tax incentives to another major corporation, Comcast. What you have is a city that recently…
Do you think the city would be better off without Comcast employees there? This is where more subtle analysis makes all the difference. Comcast doesn't seem like it would be a high-end workforce. I doubt they do any R&D there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In larger cities, even amazon money wouldn't have too much an effect.
Seattle is a pretty large city. It definitely had an extremely large effect. As I understand it from stories people told me when I lived there for a few years, South Lake Union was a lower-rent district near the lake where younger single people lived that weren't attracted to the lifestyle on Capitol Hill but didn't make enough to live downtown proper or on Queen Anne or Magnolia hills. Now those people commute 45 mi…
If you haven't seen this yet, this gambling site has Atlanta, GA / Boston, MA / Austin, TX as the top three choices for HQ2. http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_type&ev_type_id=2271...
Austin (3:1) - 25% | Boston (3:1) - 25% | Atlanta (3:1)- 25% | DC (10:1) - 9% | Pitt (10:1) - 9% | Nyc (12:1) - 7.5% | Toronto ( 14:1) - 6%
We're already at greater than 100% (106.5%). And there are 13 more cities with >= ~5% chance. It's pretty tough to have any faith in this site or their odds.
Could've been an interesting data point to look at though.
Something about this just makes my stomach sick... A massive corporation is pitting governments against each other for its own gain, often to no benefit of the local population. I'm scared to see the numbers of "incentives" that local politicians try and hand out to Amazon. There's little evidence that the public money used/lost will ever be recouped. One of the worst cases of this happening so far is the Foxconn dea…
50,000 new non-McJobs as well as the follow on service jobs is no benefit to the local population? Tell that to all the non-silicon valley mini-tech hubs like Austin, Seattle, Miami, Dallas, etc. If amazons foothold is the seed for a new techhub to emerge, that's a true net boon for that city and its people / culture.