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But these problems exist in Denver, as well as other popular cities like Austin and Portland. Denver's labor market is extremely tight, very low unemployment rate, and companies are having a very hard time finding skilled workers as it is.
It doesn't really matter how desirable a city is, the fact is, not every wants to relocate for a job. We can all assume that everyone would move to a cool city like Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, etc, but that is ignoring the millions of people that are willing to stay put in cities like Boston, DC, Philly, and Atlanta. Those cities have more than 5 million people in their metros, those metros keep growing, proving that these places are not undesirable, which is about double the metro of the "cool" cities. Not everyone has the same preferences, and majority preference says people do not like to move.
If you draw a straight line Philadelphia, DC, NYC, and Boston are what, 7 hours apart by car? And within that entire region, you have approximately 35 million people in those metro areas. Workers that would not have to relocate across the country. Students graduating from world class universities that want to look for high paying jobs that would allow them to stay near their family. An entire mega region already connected by rail. Amazon would have no problem filling 50,000 jobs in that region. There would be thousands of people willing to work that would not have to worry about uprooting their entire life across the country.
If this was a HQ2 with 5-10,000 jobs...absolutely would you see Austin, Denver, Portland, Cleveland, etc be the best fit. But this is 50,000...50,000! For a fully functioning HQ2. I just can't see a non-alpha city being able to sustain this. And like what has been said already, Amazon can't relocate enough people as it is in Seattle with only 40,000 employees. Are they really going to want more of the same?
Just some bias from my own experience: I do the hiring for my dept (IT, Info Architecture, EE, Programmers, Marketing) and we have a very hard time convincing applicants to relocate. We generally start the offer around 20% higher than in the past, and offer a great relocation package. 2/3 offers sent out to the East coast get declined. The most common reason we get for people turning down the offer was due to issues with relocation....and this is in Denver, which is one of the most popular cities to move to in the country. The reality is, people don't like to relocate.
Thanks for the post. I have some disagreements:
1. I consider Boston, DC and maybe Philly to be cool cities.
2. I'll say Portland is out. The thing about Denver and Austin is they are pretty spread out, lots of land. I think the DTC could make something work, of course that may be a selfish thought.
3. Most of the folks working in Seattle aren't Seattle natives. If you build it, they will come.
1. I consider Boston, DC and maybe Philly to be cool cities.
2. I'll say Portland is out. The thing about Denver and Austin is they are pretty spread out, lots of land. I think the DTC could make something work, of course that may be a selfish thought.
3. Most of the folks working in Seattle aren't Seattle natives. If you build it, they will come.
Boston is certainly not a cool city. People move to Boston for the jobs and institutions that it has. The city, itself is not aspirational or cool. I don’t think Boston’s image is cooler than the Phillies, it’s simply whiter.
Boston is certainly not a cool city. People move to Boston for the jobs and institutions that it has. The city, itself is not aspirational or cool. I don’t think Boston’s image is cooler than the Phillies, it’s simply whiter.
Why is Boston the only city that people move to because they absolutely have to, while everywhere else people move because they want to?
I understand that most people on this board like to be counter to reality to seem smarter than the general populous (see Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo are "hip and cool" despite the fact they're draining population). But I am interested to hear your explanation of why the dynamics of migration to Boston are so different than everywhere else in the developed world.
Last edited by btownboss4; 10-08-2017 at 11:13 AM..
I don't know people who get excited to move to Boston or Philadelphia. Every city is cool in the sense that you can hav fun and do cool things but not every city is cool in the sense that the "masses" think of it as uniquely and notably cool.
They're 5 and 6 in our urban collection, with very good urban cores. I'd be surprised if at least urbanists didn't get excited. In fact they get a lot of tourism too.
Why is Boston the only city that people move to because they absolutely have to, while everywhere else people move because they want to?
I understand that most people on this board like to be counter to reality to seem smarter than the general populous (see Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo are "hip and cool" despite the fact they're draining population). But I am interested to hear your explanation of why the dynamics of migration to Boston are so different than everywhere else in the developed world.
Aside from its institutions, what does Boston have over any other city?
Its urban fabric is better than nearly everywhere. It has better transit than many. Also a pretty good natural setting.
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