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Interesting this thread has taken off big-time. Which tells me there are still problems with our economy that encourage companies like Amazon to put their wares out there for cities to consume and bid on. (pretty brilliant on Amazon's part) While our leaders like to criticize Amazon, it is apparent that they are indeed coveted as a company that could come in and offer a lot to any given community. On one hand it is exciting that cities are clamoring for Amazon, on the other hand, why has it come to this? Really. In a perfect world, cities would be thriving with their own industries. But today's society seems to have fewer options. Kind of liking throwing meat into the pen and seeing which animals can get the most. Pretty pathetic, but perhaps today's reality.
The more I think about this, the more I don't want the Twin Cities to get it.
1. 50,000 more yuppies will change the culture of the city. They will make it blander and more corporate.
2. They will bid up the cost of housing for everybody else.
3. That is a ton of jobs from one employer. Any city smaller than Atlanta or Dallas would become a company town and would have to do Amazon's bidding because they then wouldn't be able to afford to lose that many white collar jobs.
4. If/when Amazon is broken up for antitrust reasons it will likely be devastating to Seattle and headquarter city #2.
5. This is a solution looking for a problem. Minneapolis is fine the way it is. We don't need to change the city just to get a shiny new toy.
6. When I see what the tech economy has done to Seattle and the Bay Area, that is not a model I want to follow. Formerly interesting, bohemian cities are turning into tech monocultures where the rich live well and everybody else either moves away or lives like crap. They are much less interesting places than they used to be.
Interesting this thread has taken off big-time. Which tells me there are still problems with our economy that encourage companies like Amazon to put their wares out there for cities to consume and bid on. (pretty brilliant on Amazon's part) While our leaders like to criticize Amazon, it is apparent that they are indeed coveted as a company that could come in and offer a lot to any given community. On one hand it is exciting that cities are clamoring for Amazon, on the other hand, why has it come to this? Really. In a perfect world, cities would be thriving with their own industries. But today's society seems to have fewer options. Kind of liking throwing meat into the pen and seeing which animals can get the most. Pretty pathetic, but perhaps today's reality.
Same if Uber want second headquarters cities around country are getting thirsty lol
This is a HUGE part of the RFP... especially the bolded section. I would say this rules out Bay Area, DC and NYC as HQ2 considerations if they're looking for cities with flights TO these places. With these requirements in place, I would say the top 5 considerations are going to be:
Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta and Dallas/Fort Worth in no specific order. For Canada, Toronto and Montreal.
Honorable mentions but will likely not get the HQ2 will be Pittsburgh, Miami, Nashville, Baltimore, Atlanta, Memphis, Austin, Houston, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc. All of these cities don't offer everything Amazon is seeking. I'm also unsure if they would be able to handle the infrastructure required to accommodate adding 8 million square feet of office space, and 50,000 employees in 9 short years.
Does Philly offer daily direct flights to NYC tho?
Interesting this thread has taken off big-time. Which tells me there are still problems with our economy that encourage companies like Amazon to put their wares out there for cities to consume and bid on. (pretty brilliant on Amazon's part) While our leaders like to criticize Amazon, it is apparent that they are indeed coveted as a company that could come in and offer a lot to any given community. On one hand it is exciting that cities are clamoring for Amazon, on the other hand, why has it come to this? Really. In a perfect world, cities would be thriving with their own industries. But today's society seems to have fewer options. Kind of liking throwing meat into the pen and seeing which animals can get the most. Pretty pathetic, but perhaps today's reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewcifer
The more I think about this, the more I don't want the Twin Cities to get it.
1. 50,000 more yuppies will change the culture of the city. They will make it blander and more corporate.
2. They will bid up the cost of housing for everybody else.
3. That is a ton of jobs from one employer. Any city smaller than Atlanta or Dallas would become a company town and would have to do Amazon's bidding because they then wouldn't be able to afford to lose that many white collar jobs.
4. If/when Amazon is broken up for antitrust reasons it will likely be devastating to Seattle and headquarter city #2.
5. This is a solution looking for a problem. Minneapolis is fine the way it is. We don't need to change the city just to get a shiny new toy.
6. When I see what the tech economy has done to Seattle and the Bay Area, that is not a model I want to follow. Formerly interesting, bohemian cities are turning into tech monocultures where the rich live well and everybody else either moves away or lives like crap. They are much less interesting places than they used to be.
Interesting this thread has taken off big-time. Which tells me there are still problems with our economy that encourage companies like Amazon to put their wares out there for cities to consume and bid on. (pretty brilliant on Amazon's part) While our leaders like to criticize Amazon, it is apparent that they are indeed coveted as a company that could come in and offer a lot to any given community. On one hand it is exciting that cities are clamoring for Amazon, on the other hand, why has it come to this? Really. In a perfect world, cities would be thriving with their own industries. But today's society seems to have fewer options. Kind of liking throwing meat into the pen and seeing which animals can get the most. Pretty pathetic, but perhaps today's reality.
I was just going to say — this thread is really blowing up. People here really seem to want this Amazon HQ to come to their city really badly! At first I was wondering why people care so much, like everybody wants to work for Amazon all the sudden. But I think you explained it well.
Interesting this thread has taken off big-time. Which tells me there are still problems with our economy that encourage companies like Amazon to put their wares out there for cities to consume and bid on. (pretty brilliant on Amazon's part) While our leaders like to criticize Amazon, it is apparent that they are indeed coveted as a company that could come in and offer a lot to any given community. On one hand it is exciting that cities are clamoring for Amazon, on the other hand, why has it come to this? Really. In a perfect world, cities would be thriving with their own industries. But today's society seems to have fewer options. Kind of liking throwing meat into the pen and seeing which animals can get the most. Pretty pathetic, but perhaps today's reality.
But we did have more city specialization before and that's what led so many cities to go down (see Detroit, Automobile). Today's cities aspire somewhat to specific industries but also look for diversity to avoid meltdowns like the ones experienced by Rust Belt and post-industrial cities.
Maybe off topic, but all of those house hunter shows on TV show Toronto as a city where the people end up dropping like $800k on a small duplex that needs a full renovation. Is that accurate? I would think that since Seattle has become so expensive, that COL would play somewhat of a factor.
It's pretty accurate. Toronto is a Chinese investors paradise and is built on speculation, it's pretty remarkable. My friend sold his run down house for nearly $1.5M, he bought it for I think $300K? I don't remember, but it's about 20min from downtown and yeah... Expensive as hell to live there honestly.
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