
Amazon needs a new HQ because it can’t convince people to move to Seattle - SQL2219
Amazon needs a second headquarters because it can’t convince people to move to Seattle where average home prices are $700k. If Amazon moved their HQ to Boston, home inflation would spike to 10-20% annually. Boston ($500k avg) will be Seattle in no time flat. How are you going to recruit outsiders when home inflation is off the charts? I would throw most of Colorado in the same boat as Boston, plus I don’t care for the Broncos.<p>Amazon needs a market with some real estate runway: Dallas: $300k, Atlanta $185k. But Dallas is a cluster-f traffic nightmare. Atlanta traffic is a disaster also, but at least you could afford a home there.
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codeonfire
Amazon has burned through thousands of employees trying to keep their dumber
managers in power. Amazon HQ is not American friendly either. Americans can
quit and therefore are less valued there. Amazon has a large population of
immigrant line and middle managers. It is dumb to think those people are going
to move east to a red state. And its large population of immigrant workers at
its HQ will not work under non-immigrant line managers. Economic conditions in
India and China have improved a lot since 1994 as well, so not so many people
are eager to become visa slaves in Seattle.

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pinewurst
They need a new headquarters also because Amazon has such an evil local
employer reputation that most new hires are moving in from cheaper real estate
markets.

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Finnucane
Cities are gonna fall all over themselves offering Amazon all kinds of
corporate welfare giveaways, but in reality, they should be demanding that
Amazon pay for housing and transit improvements. Any mid-size city that takes
them is going to have all of its infrastructure stressed.

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rrggrr
Chicago has a fairly stalled housing market, three two top notch universities
churning out cheap smarts, and its the multimodal freight capital of North
America. The weather would keep me from moving there, but otherwise i yhink
its a great choice for Amazon.

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Matt_Mickiewicz
Except that it's the state closest to bankruptcy... and has the most
underfunded pension system in the country. The state can't go bankrupt, and
they can't print money, so they are raising taxes and as a result many people
are leaving the state (500K emigrated in the last decade).

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jetti
My wife and I bought a house in May and my mom wanted us to move to Northwest
Indiana due to how bad Illinois has become and how hard it will be to sell
property in the coming years due to the tax increase to pay off all the debt
the state has from a lack of a budget for nearly 2 years.

It has affected public education as well. The school district my wife teaches
at relies on state money (she claims it is the only one outside of Chicago
that does) and because of lack of budget and various debts the state owes
there is not as much money for education. If things don't change shortly the
district will have to shut down in February of 2018. If teachers want to stay
past that they can but they just won't be paid. Now, granted this is the far
southwest suburbs so it may not be exactly where the new amazon workers may
live but it is still a reflection as the state as a whole.

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hourislate
I wonder if they are considering weather as part of the equation? DFW has very
nice summers and the week of winter is pretty nice. Lots of land, plenty of
wind power, great highways system, lots of talent. Seriously, why would they
even consider any where else when more Companies on the S&P 500 call Texas
home then any other state.

It's their loss if they go anywhere else.

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bradknowles
But in Dallas, they couldn’t come in and own the entire downtown. So, clearly
that is a non-option.

Now, Detroit — they could pretty much buy the entire city for a song, and then
destroy whatever they want in order to build the new environment they want to
see. But Debt-roit doesn’t have the greatest supply of techies, and they would
have to spend a lot of money to make it a nice enough place that people would
want to live there.

