Amazon is looking for a new HQ, and Detroit's in the running if we badger our representatives enough (Ann Arbor: real estate, mover)

[michikawa]

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/07/am...al-to-seattle/

Detroit hits a lot of the checkmarks on Amazon's request for proposal, except for that pesky mass transit that no one seems to want to invest in, but everyone would love to have the employers that kind of infrastructure would attract.

If the People Mover was expanded to New Center, commuter rail ran regularly from Pontiac and Ann Arbor, the buses ran efficiently throughout the region, and the curmudgeons were muzzled, Downtown or New Center would be a no-brainer for an Amazon HQ expansion.

If one seriously cares about the region, contact your State Representative (Michigan House of Representatives) or Senator (Find Your Senator) and tell them to cut the deals and build the infrastructure to bring the 21st century economy into Metro Detroit.

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

"And it’s setting out some of the parameters that it wants to follow: a city must have a population of more than 1 million people, be a “stable and business-friendly environment”, be “urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent,” and “communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options.”

I think that disqualifies us unless you can come up with a plan to import 300,000 people into Detroit overnight.

[michikawa]

Seattle doesn't even have a million in the city proper. They're talking about metro area.

[mjlo]

Originally Posted by Arthur Digby Sellers

"And it’s setting out some of the parameters that it wants to follow: a city must have a population of more than 1 million people, be a “stable and business-friendly environment”, be “urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent,” and “communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options.”

I think that disqualifies us unless you can come up with a plan to import 300,000 people into Detroit overnight.

Yeah they aren't talking about city pop (no one really uses city pop as it's a worthless metric) It's metro areas and urban areas one million or more.

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

Originally Posted by mjlo

Yeah they aren't talking about city pop (no one really uses city pop as it's a worthless metric) It's metro areas and urban areas one million or more.

Are you sure about that? From what I've read, it's defined by the city.

Regardless of that, from what I've read, Detroit doesn't have a prayer in hell for many reasons. The main one being that we just don't have the talent required. If they locate anywhere in the Midwest, it will be Chicago.

[djmilf]

I doubt it would be Chicago...just a feeling that Jeff Bezos wants to be the big fish in a small pond and Chicago wouldn't fit the bill. Perhaps Cleveland...

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

Originally Posted by djmilf

I doubt it would be Chicago...just a feeling that Jeff Bezos wants to be the big fish in a small pond and Chicago wouldn't fit the bill. Perhaps Cleveland...

He's going to be the big fish in any city not named San Francisco. This is going to be game changing for whatever city lands them.

Cleveland has the same talent problem as Detroit.

[brodie734]

It's amusing the number of people who think this is some charity auction by Amazon to the heartland... read the RFP, the only metric Detroit really checks besides population size is an international airport (which puts it above the likes of Jacksonville and Columbus), but we do not have any of the mass transit or urban density they are looking for. The RFP basically only qualifies a very small number of cities. Yet every city in the country is losing it's damn mind right now.

This will be a competition between the usual suspects for head office stealing... Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta. Maybe even Toronto will get in on the game since the RFP allows for Canadian bidders.

[mjlo]

Originally Posted by Arthur Digby Sellers

Are you sure about that? From what I've read, it's defined by the city.
.

Yes I'm sure. It's in the original wording of the RFP, urban areas and metros of more than 1 million. Companies look at market size and region. Not some arbitrary invisible boundary within the region that may or may not contain X amount of people. The only people who care about city pop is the census bureau and select people on city-data.

[michikawa]

Originally Posted by brodie734

This will be a competition between the usual suspects for head office stealing... Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta. Maybe even Toronto will get in on the game since the RFP allows for Canadian bidders.

Metro Detroit is denser than both Dallas and Atlanta, has a well educated technical workforce with the schools to back it up, experts with decades of international business experience, and has the infrastructure to manage around quarter of the USA's international trade.

Don't write off Detroit, it's one of the best logistics hubs in North America and has easy access to Canada's tenth largest GDP. It's probably the market with the highest percentage of the workforce having experience remotely operating factories and supply chains all over the world. To a company like Amazon, these things are important.