
Dear Amazon, We Picked Your New Headquarters for You - rmason
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/09/upshot/where-should-amazon-new-headquarters-be.html?utm_content=bufferea91b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
======
virtuallynathan
I'm surprised to see Philadelphia eliminated so quickly, it ticks almost all
of the boxes, and has a very large number of engineering schools (UPenn, Penn
State, Drexel, Temple, Princeton, Rutgers, etc). It's transit is better than
many of the other cities, and it has 2 major development plots in the city
with existing full tax abatements.

Not to mention its proximity to NYC and Washington, DC via Amtrak (~1h20m to
NYC, ~1h50m to DC)

Transit: [http://www.septa.org/site/images/system-
map-1400-lrg-03.30.1...](http://www.septa.org/site/images/system-
map-1400-lrg-03.30.17.jpg)

Locations w/ Tax Abatements: [http://navyyard.org](http://navyyard.org)

[http://www.schuylkillyards.com](http://www.schuylkillyards.com)

~~~
bryanlarsen
Philly was dropped by the "job growth is strong" rule, which is also drops
many other cities which would otherwise be fully qualified. So the question
really is why would Amazon have that rule and how willing are they to bend in
it.

Why would Amazon want that rule? Wouldn't it just mean there's more
competition for employees? It strikes me as the type of rule put in to ensure
their secret favorite gets chosen.

~~~
delinka
“More competition for employees” translates into higher costs.

~~~
dasil003
Are you purposefully reiterating the GP's point? Because that's exactly why
he's questioning it.

~~~
delinka
I misinterpreted the comment as asking why Amazon would drop cities with
strong job growth.

------
rmason
This really burns me. The Times compared the metro population of Grand Rapids
(1 million) to Detroit's population (670,000) in order to disqualify the city
in their first round.

But metro Detroit has a population of 4.5 million so the Times either was
sloppy with their criteria or they deliberately snubbed Detroit.

Detroit may be a dark horse in this competition but with Dan Gilbert going all
out to win I don't think you can count them out just yet even if the New York
Times hastily does.

~~~
curiouscat321
I think this is an excellent point. While Detroit has a relatively small
population, it's metropolitan area does not. It's large metropolitan area has
a large STEM talent pool thanks to the automotive sector, the second largest
Delta hub (behind Atlanta and just a giant airport anyways), and has a very
willing government plus Dan Gilbert.

It'll be a uphill battle, but I think Detroit is a serious dark horse.

~~~
flamedoge
but big question is, will Amazon go into automotive sector? otherwise, I don't
see Detroit being their pick.

~~~
nkozyra
Perhaps the point was that there may be some transferable technical talent
already in place. Plenty of programmers, statisticians, UX experts, data
scientists and IT folks needed for modern auto companies.

------
skookumchuck
Or, Amazon's announcement could just be a move to get Seattle to stop their
attacks on local businesses. The Seattle Times has routinely run pretty
negative articles on Amazon, and suddenly today they ran a positive one. I
think the Times has gotten the message.

[http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/end-of-
amazon...](http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/end-of-amazons-
seattle-monogamy-should-be-lesson-to-civic-leaders/)

~~~
kitten_mittens_
It's pretty hard to argue that Amazon's relationship with the city is not
toxic.

~~~
skookumchuck
Seattle elected and re-elected Kshama Sawant to the city council. She is an
avowed socialist, and is openly hostile to Boeing and Amazon. At one point she
wanted to nationalize Boeing.

I'd think twice about investing in anything under her sway.

~~~
JBlue42
She's an elected official, which means some Seattle people seem to think her
ideas are worthwhile.

~~~
skookumchuck
That's right, she's reflective of the community. And if that community is
hostile to Amazon/Boeing, why should they continue to invest in that
community?

The Seattle mayoral election candidates are all well over on the left. There
isn't even anyone to vote for if you aren't on the left.

~~~
JBlue42
Out of curiosity, what has Amazon actually "invested" in the community?

------
hn_throwaway_99
I know they eliminated Pittsburgh right out of the gate, but I think it has a
bunch of things going for it. It's one of the few places where housing is
cheap (but a pretty beautiful downtown) but young tech workers would love to
live: tons of stuff to do but lots of knowledge workers with CMU. Biggest
obvious issue is no direct flights to Seattle, but if Amazon built a
headquarters there it seems like it would be easy to reach critical mass to
add more flights

~~~
bsder
Yeah, I'm a bit surprised at this.

Pittsburgh is probably really close to ideal. I can't really think of much of
a downside.

It has a lot of universities, and the programmers are quite good (the ex-CTO
of Modcloth? had a video where he pointed out that the Pittsburgh office was
quite a bit better than the SV office). Your factory workers will be out
toward the airport and your knowledge workers will be downtown. It's a very
old city, so it is quite a bit more pedestrian friendly than most. And,
because it's old, it has a really good arts scene. And Pittsburgh has a
_woefully_ underutilized airport.

The only downsides are weather: 1) Lack of sunlight--Pittsburgh is almost as
bad as Seattle in that respect and 2) Winter--Northeast winters _SUCK_.

~~~
jimktrains2
Winters in Pittsburgh aren't that bad, especially the past few. There's a
major storm here and there, but very rarely is anything major shutdown.

------
Osiris
I live in the Denver metro area and I think this assessment is pretty spot-on.
The only downside is rush hour traffic around downtown can add 15-20 minutes
to the commute. However, these is a significant light rail presence.

I would say quality of life is great for anyone that likes to do anything
outdoors: fishing, skiing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc.

And there's a pretty strong community of software engineers here.

~~~
conorgil145
I lived in Denver for the past 2 years and agree with this assessment as well.
The light rail has expanded lines in recent years to the airport and I have
read that the plan is for that expansion to continue to eventually link Denver
and Boulder. Amazon could build their huge complex anywhere in that area and
workers could take public transportation to the office.

~~~
heimdall
I graduated from CU-Boulder in 2009 and have lived in the Denver-metro area
ever since. I could very easily see Amazon drawn to the Boulder-Longmont-
Lafayette triangle if not in Denver proper.

Lots of growth here in the last 5 years especially. Many long-time locals are
complaining about the cost-of-living going up, though.

~~~
peatmoss
Having been in Seattle for nearly a decade now, Denver is one place that I'd
absolutely consider at some point. I love mountains and sunshine, which Denver
gets in spades. Having grown up in MT, the mountains around Seattle are
beautiful, but never feel quite right to me—mountains should be dry!

------
all_blue_chucks
The major factor that isn't mentioned: state income tax. Washington has no
income tax. It's no small coincidence that it has so many billionaires living
there.

But Seattle is trying to impose a 2.5% income tax on high earners. This might
be Jeff's way of reminding them they have to compete to keep his business
around.

Also, a 0% income tax rate makes a HUGE difference in attracting tech workers
who earn $200k+...

~~~
JBlue42
Boo hoo for rich people?

~~~
all_blue_chucks
Are you lost? This is a site full of software industry types. Everyone here is
either "rich" already or trying to be...

~~~
JBlue42
Very true.

I'm just here to spy on what the well-to-do and techno-utopianists are up to
and want to inflict on the rest of us in the future. ;-)

------
jaggederest
I think a lot of cities would be well advised to steer clear, Amazon would
have a pretty crazy distortion effect. It might make sense in Denver, but I
can't imagine them fitting into any smaller city (~3m).

I expect it to end up in a former rustbelt or midwestern city explicitly
eliminated in this article in the 'strong job growth' phase. Dallas, Chicago,
Minneapolis, Detroit, Philadelphia.

~~~
oh_sigh
Denver only has 700k in the city itself, and ~2.7M in the metro area.

~~~
jaggederest
Yeah I'm saying that, for example, the effects on Raleigh would be pretty
overwhelmed at 2m, if Denver could even handle it at 3.3m. Contrast with
Minneapolis at 3.8m, Dallas at 7.3m, and Chicago at close to 10m on the money.

I'm using the CSA definitions because I think that's a better way of comparing
wildly different cities.

------
blinkingled
> We asked the economist David Albouy to rank these metro areas for us with an
> index he uses to measure how much people would be willing to sacrifice, in
> terms of housing costs and commutes, to live in desirable places. On that
> basis, we cut Charlotte, N.C.

My experience being that neither housing costs nor commute times being
horribly bad around CLT - this bums me out. It's actually a great city with
lots of nature around it, ATL is 4hr drive, housing costs in nearby areas
(Fort Mill, SC e.g.) aren't anywhere near as bad as say Atlanta suburbs. It's
not NYC to be sure - culture wise not very hip but I did not think the mid-
career experienced people Amazon would be hiring would mind that at all.

Maybe the NYT was too literal when they considered CLT or maybe I don't
understand what exactly the sacrifice would be in terms of housing costs and
commutes.

~~~
cjslep
I spent the first 18 years of my life growing up in Charlotte during the 90s
and 00 housing and bank boom, and have revisited friends there fairly often
since. Can't say I am rooting for Amazon to locate a HQ there.

Downtown has never really had any appeal for an under-21 besides Discovery
Place (is that even still around?) which is more geared for the pre-13 age
group. Post-21 more recently it seems to have been revitalized but having been
spoiled by Raleigh, still feels sterile and kind of bland. Even in NoDa, where
all those creative people have already been priced out of that community.

I'm definitely still colored by my hatred of bland suburbia of that city,
which afforded teenagers absolutely nothing to do except shop or watch movies
in the theatre. It really is geared for the traditional suburban parent types
through and through. Compared to other parts of NC with a diverse cultural
scene (Asheville and Raleigh) Charlotte drops the diversity for an increased
price.

It also has the unfortunate location of being inside NC, whose state politics
have been anything but sane the past half decade, and the local college is
also overshadowed heavily by Chapel Hill, Duke, and State in the Triangle
area. That's the metro area I would expect Amazon to pick over Charlotte, as
there's a lot of non-hip tech companies already established there. And even a
few hip ones like Epic Games.

~~~
santaclaus
More importantly, the BBQ in the Triangle is superior to that of Charlotte.

------
adverbly
This is such a terrible way to make a decision like this. The types of filters
they used were completely arbitrary,the filtering level for each type of
filter was arbitrary, and the number of filters they used was arbitrary. Plus,
they didn't even include Toronto, who is probably a very strong contender.

~~~
snarf21
I agree, there is strong factors to consider a location outside of the US.
Despite the NYT analysis, I think this is going to end up in Boston. I don't
buy the "there is no room for the location" argument. It is like they've never
been to Boston. Sure you can't drop it in the downtown but there are lots of
areas in need of redevelopment very near by. I also think that Boston has a
_huge_ advantage in terms of talent pool. Look at all the top schools in
Boston, Amazon needs the talent more than the money.

Additionally, I think this is a game. They've already decided where, they just
want leverage to get a better deal there. This isn't like the Giga factory
where they just need manual labor so anywhere would work. I'll be interested
to see where it ends up though.

~~~
JPKab
Boston has colleges and universities, and yes, they are amazing.

But guess what? Recent college graduates are happy to move to places with
better weather and lower costs of living, and they do. We interview top tier
people looking to relocate from Boston all the time.

I say that as someone who loves Boston, and especially like the culture and
people.

~~~
snarf21
I meant it largely in the local ability for intern programs, partnerships with
the various internal school "labs", etc. You also have a better chance at
attracting institutional talent as they can switch without moving or upsetting
their life. Look at the huge exodus of staff from CMU to Uber, etc.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Why doesn't Amazon choose a city that _almost_ meets their criteria and invest
the wealth they generate there back into the city? Then we get more good
cities instead of overinvesting into any single city.

~~~
umanwizard
Well Amazon isn't a charity; why would you expect them to care about anything
other than their own criteria?

~~~
KGIII
For the same reason my company used to, I'm retired, sponsor the local little
league sports teams - even though the audiences were absolutely never going to
be clients?

Sometimes, you do the right thing, just because it's the right thing to do. It
wasn't an investment. It was just giving back to the community that housed us.

I guess you could argue that it improved employee morale? I don't think any of
our employees even had kids on the team.

~~~
umanwizard
I'm not denying that companies do charitable things, but I think where to
build your headquarters is much more fundamental than whether to give money to
a kids' sports team. Would your former company have made decisions about the
parameters of their core business based on the interests of Little League?

~~~
KGIII
I'm not convinced that their office location is a core business decision.
Wherever they go, people will also go. They could HQ in Mozambique and still
attract top talent.

------
mcbits
Instead of two headquarters, why not 50 headquarters? They have one of the
largest and most reliable networks in the world - use it! With offices spread
across the country (continent, even), they could hire from a talent pool that
dwarfs Seattle and Denver. They wouldn't have to find 100+ contiguous acres
for sale in one metropolis. City Council elections wouldn't have to be of
strategic importance. Likewise for disaster preparedness. They already have
distribution centers all over the place.

~~~
Johnny555
The same reason Google, Facebook, Apple, et all still bus employees 40 miles
south from SF to their offices -- having people together in one office (or
campus) makes them more productive, no matter how much technology you throw at
it.

~~~
drawkbox
Most communication in an office still takes place virtually just as you do
remotely. Within a company located in the same physical area you might
communicate across floors, across buildings, across campuses.

Yes it is nice to have small groups together on regular basis in meetings,
integration sessions, brainstorming but for the most part jobs are virtual
even in an office today with chat, email, text, phones, video chat, etc.
Everyone in one location is both a single point of failure and doesn't scale
well to employees changes, i.e. people move frequently, skill is available in
different technologies not always in one location, etc. Better virtual
communication in companies even on-site is needed, being in one place without
that can actually put a damper on performance and ability to ship.

~~~
Johnny555
Yet the evidence from major tech companies suggests that physical presence is
worth the time and expense to bus most employees to a central campus. Apple is
spending $5B on their new building to house 13,000 employees together. Amazon
is committing $5B to their new campus to house 50,000 employees.

~~~
mcbits
There is evidence that they haven't reached their limits with vertical scaling
as Amazon apparently has.

~~~
Johnny555
I think Amazon has reached the limits of Seattle -- Seattle can't build
housing or transportation fast enough to match Amazon's growth, so starting
somewhere fresh makes sense.

Plus there's the redundancy benefit -- if the Pacific Northwest suffers the
catastrophic earthquake they are predicting, Amazon's HQ2 will live on (and
make a fortune shipping supplies to the area).

~~~
mcbits
Building a second HQ is horizontal scaling unless they plan to consolidate at
the new location and continue vertical scaling from there. It sounds like
they're actually distributing the HQ across two locations, not just building a
specialized satellite office. (All of the mentioned companies have those.)

If computing works as an analogy, decoupling a system enough to spread across
two servers without one being the true master/head is already half the battle.
But you'd rarely design a distributed system only to run it on two servers.
The synchronization overhead wipes out most of the gains. Once you have the
architecture, you might as well move to commodity servers that are
collectively cheaper and more powerful than two top-of-the-line servers.

I wonder if there is an organizational equivalent of the CAP theorem.

------
mrep
I was thinking about this today and realized something about
tech/finance/entertainment... hubs.

The best way to get one is by having major players in the industry set up shop
there. Cities hope the next big tech company will be in their city, but lots
of the employees that switch companies to help startups grow come from top
companies and it is way easier to get people to switch companies if they don't
have to move.

Seattle has become a good tech hub due to amazon and microsoft.

I think whatever city wins this will have a massive long term tech hub boost
because of it. This will probably be many times better for a cities economy
than some factory.

~~~
Spooky23
Is Amazon looking for a tech hub or a place for administrative functions.

Recall Microsoft moving all of their admin stuff to the Midwest somewhere.

~~~
mrep
> Is Amazon looking for a tech hub or a place for administrative functions.

"The jobs will likely be broken down into the following categories:
executive/management, engineering with a preference for software development
engineers (SDE), legal, accounting, and administrative." [1]

SDE is clearly mentioned but who know the actual distribution.

[1]: [https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything...](https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/RFP_3._V516043504_.pdf)

------
rdtsc
Not sure if Washington, DC includes Northern Virginia (Ashburn, Herndon,
Reston). AWS is already here. And a ridiculous amount of fiber seems to out
through this area. I see new data centers popping up quite often. And prices
are crazy expensive but probably still cheaper than the city itself.

So I would pick this area if I was them. Though not sure how I'd personally
feel about prices and traffic going up even higher with Amazon's second HQ
moving in.

~~~
JPKab
I currently live between Denver and Boulder. Lived in the DC area for 8 years.

It's an AWFUL place to build an HQ, but Amazon might do it anyway.

1) Salaries are artificially inflated by competition from the Govt and Govt
contractors.

2) Traffic is nightmarishly bad.

3) Housing is incredibly expensive

4) Tech skills aren't as high as the stats indicate. The gov't and contractors
have an amazing way of creating people whose titles indicate they know what
they're doing, but they don't. See healthcare.gov fiasco for an illustration.
A senior data engineer in DC is someone who knows SQL and Informatica, as
opposed to someone that can actually do real tech. The intelligence agencies
have awesome talent, but they have enormous salaries inflated by their
security clearances and you're not going to get them.

5) Weather fucking sucks. I lived there 8 years, it sucks.

6) Quality of life just isn't good. Average commute times and cultural
amenities are bad.

~~~
rdtsc
Heh.

Yeah it's a mix of tech companies and gov. + gov contractors. A lot of people
seem to work for the "State Dept." here (cough CIA cough) or other such
agencies.

Tech talent is varied as you say. There are a lot of tech companies, some of
Amazon's AWS is here, and there Microsoft, Google and others. They are
probably dwarfed by Lockheed, Booz, Northrop and "We put butts in seats"
ManTech but overall at least the NoVa area seems tech-y enough.

Traffic is not bad if you don't have to get on the beltway or go all the way
to DC in rush hour. And there is Metro, with all the hate and issues they've
been having it works and is better than other cities I've lived in.

> Housing is incredibly expensive

Compared to Midwest or South it is ridiculously expensive. But out in suburbs
(and not DC proper) it's more manageable than Seattle, SF, NY and such it
seems.

> 5) Weather fucking sucks. I lived there 8 years, it sucks

True, true. Though it's fall now. Finally a few weeks of nice cool mornings
when opening windows feels nice. And I do like the mountains out West. Skyline
drive, hiking and the small towns and farms.

> 6) Quality of life just isn't good. Average commute times and cultural
> amenities are bad.

I just tried not to commute and lived closed to work. Now work from home. Now
you might ask why would I still stay in this area, and that would be a good
question. So far it inertia mostly and maybe the idea that it's probably safer
to stay in a tech area if had to wanted to switch jobs and working from home
wasn't an option any more.

------
PorgSmorg
Absolutely love, despite the fact that it's mentioned numerous times that
Amazon is searching all of NA for its second hq, that both Canada, and Mexico
are completely ignored. This is despite the fact that Toronto is currently the
continents fastest growing tech market due to a lot of factors that would be
of incredible interest to a behemoth like Amazon. Feels a like a bit of a snub
of the thumb by NYT on that one...

~~~
jacques_chester
As they explained in the article:

> _(With apologies to Canada, we’ve set aside Toronto and several other large
> cities because they’re not included in most of the data sets we’ve used to
> determine which places meet Amazon’s needs.)_

~~~
umanwizard
If the NYT were intellectually honest, that would have been the point at which
the editor said "okay, this is pointless, let's not do the article".

Reporting results you know are flawed is not the correct response to
discovering that it's impossible to get non-flawed results.

~~~
PorgSmorg
Exactly! As I mentioned in my reply to this comment, if they actually used the
platitudes of data available on the subject - instead of clearly cherry -
Toronto would easily be in the top 3, at the very least. The fact that they
admit that the data they _chose_ didn't mention Toronto doesn't help their
case any.

------
fma
I live in Atlanta. I was hopefully it would be the final pick...but when I got
down to the section about being able to move around the city easily, I knew
we'd be cut.

Not going to complain about traffic/mass-transit here...but it's a known issue
and we supposedly lost another bid (can't think of the company here) because
of traffic. We did get a few others...Mercedes-Benz for one.

------
cozzyd
I think Rahm might be able to pull it off for Chicago. I could see Amazon
moving into the Old Post Office, partially for the symbolism, partially for
the convenience.

~~~
vforgione
This could actually be a cool idea. It seems like the Fulton Market boom
flopped and all the real estate went to condos and luxury apartments. Moving a
major tech hub into the loop could have some interesting outcomes like
balancing the opportunities for people who don't have easy access to the near
north and west sides.

------
vturner
Glad to see Columbus off the list and hope it stays that way, if we must give
tax breaks, I'd rather it be to small businesses, not monopolies.

------
boulos
I'm surprised none of the comments here highlight the time zone benefit that
one of the east coast options would give them. Having a large group of
employees still based in the US, yet able to sensibly overlap with Europe is a
huge deal.

In the same way that Portland is too close physically, Denver doesn't gain you
"anything" for timezone diversity. They might offer the sweetest financial
package, but it still seems like a wasted opportunity.

------
Fricken
When the hq2 news first broke, Denver was the first city to pop into my mind,
without really thinking about it. And I've never even _been_ to Denver, just
the airport.

~~~
dogruck
I've visited Denver many times -- but I had the same immediate thought. Or
Kansas City.

------
codingdave
And those of us in Utah say... "Wait, no, we have Universities here, and could
totally support Amazon." Then we think about the urban sprawl of SLC, and look
at the outdoors and think about how crowded it has gotten already at Arches
and Zion and say... "Yes, OK. Denver sounds good."

~~~
batbomb
It wouldn't work in SLC for a variety of reasons.

Utah really needs some sort of excellence (lab/institute/etc...) in
engineering/science/high tech research that's not just biotech, in addition to
a more diverse workforce, to really be a next-level tech environment.

------
c3534l
I don't think Amazon is actually "looking" for a new headquarters so much as
asking for a sweetheart deal to do business there, sort of like how cities
will spend absurd amounts of money to woo sports teams.

------
kyledrake
The Twin Cities (AKA Minneapolis) perhaps doesn't scale well on the "raw
growth" charts, but the region has a strong track record for being a very good
place for corporate headquarters. By metropolitan area, it ranks first among
the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the number of Fortune 500 companies per
capita. It's also a major knowledge hub for shipping logistics, which is why
Amazon opened an office there related to that work.

I'm not really jazzed about the idea of Amazon moving in, but don't discount
the Twin Cities here, it's a very strong contender.

------
technofiend
Actually I would challenge the idea Houston doesn't have enough of the
professionals required.

Houston was eliminated as not having enough white collar workers. Yet they
left in Austin which is far smaller because at least 12.5 % base of their base
has the right skills.

It makes sense to compare desired jobs versus the general population but not
without context. Seriously with six million+ people here, do you really need
12.5% or 750,000 of them to be what Amazon would consider hiring when they
only need 50,000 people?

I find the idea absurd: Amazon could fill their entire job quota out of the
current worker pool.

~~~
vitus
Off the top of my head, two main points for why Austin is better-suited than
Houston for a tech HQ:

\- UT (@Austin) means a large pool of fresh grads from a top-10 CS program
they can recruit.

\- Existing presence of both Amazon itself and other tech companies (Google,
FB, MS, etc) means they don't have to relocate workers, and it's a lot easier
to convince SDEs from other companies to jump ship.

~~~
JPKab
Gay employees can't marry. That's all you need to say no.

~~~
gtCameron
Gay marriage has been legal in all 50 states for 2 years now

~~~
JPKab
You're right. I'm a moron. However, I'd like to point out that Texas state
gov't doesn't send a big "welcome" message of tolerance and inclusion to LGBTQ
community.

~~~
saryant
Houston was the first city in the US to elect an openly lesbian mayor.

------
tzs
> At this point, though, we’re going to eliminate Portland, because it makes
> little sense for the company to put a second headquarters so close to
> Seattle.

Nonsense. Most or all of the reasons people have speculated on for why they
want a second headquarters work as long as it is not in the same state as
Seattle.

Portland is only three hours from Seattle by car. That's close enough that it
is not unreasonable for someone at one office to make an occasional day trip
to the other. That could give some flexibility they would not get if the
offices were farther apart.

~~~
JPKab
I live between Denver and Boulder. My brother lives in Portland.

I think Portland is great, but I think it would be a mistake.

1) The lack of sunlight in Portland is the same as Seattle. There are a ton of
people who just won't live in places like this. It's actually allowed my
company to easily recruit people from places like LA who won't consider
cloudy, rainy places due to Seasonal Affective Disorder.

2) Portland has bad traffic. Shockingly bad for it's size.

3) The airport is nice, but small. Flights aren't often direct.

------
SQL2219
Denver is not going to make the cut. Housing prices are already growing at 10%
yoy. Add an Amazon to that and you're going to be Seattle in about 18 months.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/troymcmullen/2017/05/03/denver-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/troymcmullen/2017/05/03/denver-
home-prices-continue-to-rise/#bbc81d923039)

------
Chloro
Portland would win if it wasnt so close to Seattle

------
joveian
Since Bezos has a house and newspaper in D.C. but D.C. itself isn't suitable,
I'm thinking "distance from D.C." is a major unmentioned criteria and the main
point is to get suburbs and nearby cities to compete. I'll guess Baltimore.

Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of places will offer plenty of bribes ("tax
benfits") that should be illegal.

------
Corrado
I'm a native of Louisville, KY and while I was excited to see them on the
original list of cities, I can understand why it might not make it. To me,
Louisville is a great place to live; we are average in almost every way
possible. So, we get snow but not blizzards, rain but not hurricanes, heat but
not heat waves, etc... We also have a lot of growth potential and plenty of
room to expand.

The place we falter, IMHO, is the social aspect; it's just not cool to
live/work here. Sure we have Churchill Downs (The Kentucky Derby) and quite a
lot of bourbon but I'm not sure that makes up for the lack of cool places to
live and out downtown shuts down after 5PM. Still, if Amazon HQ showed up I'm
sure those things would change pretty quickly. $50MM and 50,000 extra people
have that effect. :)

------
beart
Grand Rapids, MI is just WAITING for something like this to turn it into a
major city. It has an awesome culture and a ton of interesting things
happening. However, the available tech job pool is still low and what jobs do
exist are typically at non-tech companies who happen to employ tech workers.

~~~
tptacek
It's not easy to get in and out of GR. Airline connectivity was one of
Amazon's criteria.

------
obeone
I've lived between Denver and Boulder for a couple of decades now, and my gut
reaction is that Denver/Boulder is probably the type of area that Amazon is
looking for to attract talent. Louisville, CO (outside Boulder) is often
ranked #1 or #2 for great places to live, and Louisville has the abandoned
Storagetek campus (~432 acres) and immediate access to HWY36 and the 470
Tollway. Whether or not adding a mega-campus of 50,000 to the 80027 zip code
(or frankly, even one 20 minutes south to Denver proper) is good for the
Corridor is another conversation entirely.

------
uptownfunk
San Diego would be an awesome choice. Great weather. Burbs are good for
families. Beach is not far.

------
throwaway2016a
This is going to sound crazy and I have no idea of the "Willingness to pay to
play" aspect but...

Nashua New Hampshire.

\- Easy reverse commute from Boston

\- Easy access to Boston schools

\- New Hampshire is a business friendly state

\- Plenty of cheap office space

\- No income or sales tax

And, if a larger[1] company moves into the area it will make the commuter rail
to Boston project the city has been trying to push a no brainer.

It is even already in one of the highlighted areas of the article (the Boston
highlighted region covers Nashua).

[1] It is already home to the headquarters an entire large subdivision of BAE
Systems, as well an Oracle office, EMC, Fidelity, and an Amazon distribution
center.

------
natch
Notwithstanding the NYT process, it would be interesting to see if Amazon can
find a spot that does not fit all the criteria itself, but is situated such
that people can be pulled (by lower cost of living) to the place from nearby
areas with talent. An example of this would be the Sacramento / Davis area.

The Mexico possibility is also very intriguing, though it seems difficult to
make it work with the safety and language issues.

------
dokument
Didn't Amazon say North America, not United States?

------
shawn-butler
I wonder if there is a study of these "sweetheart" municipal discretionary tax
incentives deals? I have to imagine very few, if any, ever achieve the ROI the
politicians claim and usually on top of non-tax incentives.

Would be interesting to see some actual data.

These people in power make these deals with little public oversight, usually
negotiated in secret, knowing full well they won't have to deal with the long
term impacts.

~~~
tanilama
Can't the residents vote the deal down if they are not happy with it? Just
curious.

------
acconrad
Oh cool Boston is making it pretty far (I live and grew up here)

> _… and workers can easily get around — and out of town …_

Haha yup and that's when it drops off- WAIT WHAT??

~~~
hbk1966
I'm surprised DFW was knocked out at that stage too. From what I hear traffic
is horrible in Denver.

~~~
nether
People say traffic is bad in LA, but Seattle is next level congestion.

~~~
bagacrap
LA #1 woohoo [http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cities-ranked-worst-
traffi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cities-ranked-worst-
traffic-2017-8/#15-austin-received-a-score-of-25-meaning-it-took-
commuters-25-more-time-to-travel-anywhere-in-the-city-thats-a-3-increase-
from-2016-showing-traffic-conditions-have-worsened-1)

------
spectrum1234
Charlotte doesn't have a good cost of living (or whatever the metric was)?
Last I saw it was one of the best for wages/job ratio.

------
X86BSD
I am voting for KC.

------
jszymborski
Amazon made it clear that it was looking for "someplace in North America"...
there are 2 other countries you've left out with metro areas that fit at least
some of the criteria.

~~~
umanwizard
I would be shocked if Amazon put its headquarters anywhere where English is
not the primary language. That leaves Toronto and Vancouver, unless I'm
forgetting somewhere.

~~~
tzs
Parts of Mexico could end up satisfying that if Congress does not act on DACA.
It would be interesting if a company opened facilities in Mexico with the
specific purpose of recruiting from deported DACA beneficiaries.

------
lazyant
"workers can easily get around — and out of town" \- Washington DC makes the
cut, that's a joke, 470 and beltway is one of the most congested roads in the
US.

------
meow_mix
Happy to see Columbus on the list, shame our tech growth isn't quite at the
other state's levels right now (although I think it will be in the future!)

------
brownbat
> The company has asked for very specific information on all the state,
> regional and local incentives communities are willing to offer, and the
> timelines for how long it would take to approve them. Amazon concludes its
> proposal by stressing that this a “competitive project.” So let the
> competition among cities begin!

Sigh. I know these could be good in some situations, but sometimes I wish
cities had a most favored company law: every business that employs people gets
the same tax benefits as the company that got the best deal. Cities could only
agree to things that were good for businesses generally, rather than letting
one or two ignore the rules for five years before they suddenly relocate to
shop for a better deal.

Relevant Planet Money:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/04/476799218/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/04/476799218/episode-699-why-
did-the-job-cross-the-road)

~~~
ISL
That works as long as there are no other cities playing the game.

------
hourislate
The article fails to take weather as part of the equation. Did not address
green energy. My thoughts are DFW will be one of the top contenders.

------
musikele
For Europeans to come and work in USA, a West Coast city would be better -
Washington, New York, Miami, boston ...

~~~
jpatokal
I think you meant East Coast? But as far as immigration is a factor, it would
make more sense to optimize for access to Asia.

------
ruffrey
Poorly researched.

They kicked Sacramento off the first round "1 million or more" yet there are 2
million in the greater Sacramento area, strong job growth and local economy,
affordable housing, and decent tech chops (ok not the Bay Area by a long
shot). The SMA has no detectable boundaries between cities; they just blend
together.

I wonder how many other cities were eliminated due to poor research.

~~~
in_cahoots
Sacramento was kicked off for poor job growth, not population. Every city on
the list met the population criteria.

------
nether
Please no. Leave Denver alone.

~~~
sumedh
Why, can you be more specific

~~~
megadopechos
Because the amenities and attractions and character of the city are being
ruined by the flood of people moving here.

~~~
sumedh
Fair enough

------
tootie
They've already spent a ton and bought probably 1M square feet in New York. I
know it's expensive as hell, but I don't how that slows them down at all. It's
the default first choice for any big business on the east coast.

------
jagger27
I think Ottawa, Canada would fit the bill too.

------
walterkobayashi
Boston has crumbling infrastructure. A Big NO

~~~
drewcon
It really doesn't. Big dig and associated/dependent projects have taken care
of a lot that.

Also "Boston"!= Boston...which is basically a euphemism for Eastern
Massachusetts, Northern RI, and Souther NH. You could do this project in
Nashua, Worcester, Providence, Waltham, outside 128, and it would make double
or triple the cost sense of downtown Boston/Cambridge/Somerville.

------
SubiculumCode
It will probably land in Reno. Just my prediction.

~~~
eelkefolmer
I agree, Nevada is able to provide the largest tax abatements which is
probably going to be the deciding factor (helped recruit GigaFactory, Las
Vegas Raiders etc). 300 days of sunshine, cheap real state, low cost of living
and close proximity to 15 ski resorts, plus 45 minute flights to
Seattle/Silicon Valley.

------
senatorobama
Why not Australia? XD

------
artursapek
_All of Denver collectively tells NYT to shut the hell up_

------
querulous
I think Amazon has already selected Toronto (or possibly somewhere else in
Ontario like Kitchener-Waterloo or Windsor) and is just running this 'contest'
to extract the best deal they can get. I don't see any reason for dual HQs
unless they are hedging against the risk they may have to abandon their
current HQ and the biggest threat they face is anti-monopoly actions by a
hostile government. Any secondary HQ is going to be outside of the USA and
they've already eliminated Europe and Asia.

No city in the USA can compete with Toronto on the basis of legal risk, cheap
labour (senior software devs top out around $90k usd in Toronto) and
population/infrastructure

~~~
troydavis
> I don't see any reason for dual HQs unless

A huge one: Seattle is starting to feel a bit like a company town. This has
all sorts of practical considerations, like labor cost and real estate
availability.

For example, from [https://www.geekwire.com/2017/how-seattles-office-market-
bec...](https://www.geekwire.com/2017/how-seattles-office-market-became-a-
modern-day-gold-rush-thanks-to-amazon-and-a-deep-roster-of-out-of-town-tech-
companies/): Amazon "takes up approximately 20 percent of Seattle’s office
inventory, one of the highest concentrations in the country by a single
corporate entity," and Amazon anticipates 50% growth in square footage between
2016 and 2020.

tl;dr: the strongest reasons for 2 HQs aren't political.

------
maxharris
This violates the same principle as:

"Dear NYT, We Decided the Stories You'll Be Reporting on for You"

"Dear John Smith, We Picked Your Next Girlfriend for You"

~~~
mtmail
John Smith put out a document outlining his preferences and released a
document 'submit your proposal"
([https://www.amazon.com/amazonhq2](https://www.amazon.com/amazonhq2)).

~~~
maxharris
The New York Times is a newspaper, not a city. And ultimately the decision
rests with Amazon, not anyone else. The wording of their headline should
reflect that, because the way it is written currently is quite disrespectful.

~~~
trgv
The headline is clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek, as is the article itself,
at least to some degree.

~~~
dogruck
Totally! (And, the NYT scootches closer to The Onion)

