Amazon is looking for a second HQ. Why not, Pittsburgh? (Philadelphia: condos, how much)

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by erieguy

And that land became available because those that owned that land took the money rather than continuing to farm it.

The area would've grown whether it was in Allegheny County or not due to less land being available just north of it, however, not being in Allegheny County made/makes it even more appealing and a reason it continues to boom.

The tax situation (mostly not doing a reassessment since 1969) has certainly helped. It's basically created a situation where taxes on new construction homes in the Cranberry/Adams area are lower than they would otherwise be, while those in the still declining northern portions of the county have artificially high taxes.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The tax situation (mostly not doing a reassessment since 1969) has certainly helped. It's basically created a situation where taxes on new construction homes in the Cranberry/Adams area are lower than they would otherwise be, while those in the still declining northern portions of the county have artificially high taxes.

Don't tell anyone, but we'd pay higher taxes here in Cranberry. It's far too convenient here to want to leave.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by erieguy

Don't tell anyone, but we'd pay higher taxes here in Cranberry. It's far too convenient here to want to leave.

I don't think it would scare off too many existing residents. It would cool off construction of new subdivisions however, as higher taxes would be priced into the new builds selling prices, making them less cost competitive with subdivisions built in the North Hills within Allegheny County.

[bluecarebear]

This will be another Uber bust. Amazon has exaggerated their potential presence to get the most freebies from cities. 50,000 high paying jobs? Yeah, right.

[JoeP]

This will be another Uber bust. Amazon has exaggerated their potential presence to get the most freebies from cities. 50,000 high paying jobs? Yeah, right.

Given the needs of Amazon, it's not a bust. They have real expansion plans. That said, 50K is very high. However, a 1,000 person HQ is significant to any city.

[bluecarebear]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Given the needs of Amazon, it's not a bust. They have real expansion plans. That said, 50K is very high. However, a 1,000 person HQ is significant to any city.

I can believe a number closer to 1,000. Amazon promises thousands of jobs when they bring distribution centers to cities and they end up automating the plant.

[Mtl-Cns]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

This will be another Uber bust.

What is this Uber bust you speak of?

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Mtl-Cns

What is this Uber bust you speak of?

Curious to this myself. The more the merrier, here.

[MountainDewGuy]

The problem for Pittsburgh getting Amazon's second headquarters is that the city does not have a strong mass transit system, and Amazon's core preferences for this location include "direct access to mass transit", which pretty much dooms Pittsburgh. Sure, the city will do a song a dance routine about how the BRT can be extended to the Hazelwood site, but at the end of the day Pittsburgh's lack of mass transit planning for decades will do it in. Plus, the Hazelwood location would be a logistical nightmare if tens of thousands of new commuters suddenly started commuting there because the bottlenecks that would exist.

Peduto will however come up with some nonsense about the private access road from Oakland to Hazlewood being just for Amazon commuters in self driving vehicles, which won't work when cities like Boston and DC have such strong mass transit systems in place.

[PenguinsFan14]

I don't think Pittsburgh will be an option for this, although we'll be given a look. 50k employees would be like adding another upmc here. That's way too large for the area. I've read several articles stating that we have around 45k tech workers in the region. So, even if 40k out of the 50k employees needed are tech workers, that really isn't enough. The 45k tech workers we have are not all unemployed and I doubt Amazon wants to hire every single one. All companies want to have a big pool of applicants to pick from to keep wages low and Amazon just wouldn't have that here for HQ2. I see them going to Dallas because of the bigger population size compared to Pittsburgh and Austin. Whole Foods HQ is in Austin and Bezos has a big ranch in TX. Plus, TX is a very business friendly state, especially with taxes. PA has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the nation and does not give nearly the amount of subsides that other states give.

PA lowering its corp tax rate would bring in a ton of companies from the northeast, but we've decided to go another route with taxing energy companies and putting casinos everywhere. I'm sure our masters in Harrisburg know what they're doing. Besides, they've already granted us the luxury of purchasing beer at Giant Eagle, so we can't complain too much. We have it pretty good.