Phoenix metroplex should go after Amazon's 2nd HQ (Scottsdale, Chandler: neighborhood, taxes)

[Burning Madolf]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

How do you suppose I as one person could bring in the ambitious, talented, skilled people we need to have the competitive jobs? For one thing, I'm certainly no Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos ... and most importantly, it takes a large network of people with vision and innovation to do what I have proposed. Phoenix definitely has potential to be a world class metro region, but it's not going to happen as long as the majority of those who live here and move here have little to no interest in helping to make it all it can be. This city has come a long way in the last few decades, but it still falls behind in many areas compared to other cities & metro areas our size.

Yeah, I was just curious since you are always going on about "Phoenix needs to .... in order to ......"

Thought you might actually participate in something you could share.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

On top of that ASU is a state public university that has to have relaxed general admission standards.

Berkeley is a public school as well, but there are enough public schools in the state that Berkeley and UCLA can have tougher admission standards than, say, Long Beach State. The problem here is that we don't let one of the top two schools rise above the other. If they made ASU harder to get into than U of A (or vice versa) the reputation would improve. Schools like Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina have national reputations--typically in the top 5 public schools with UCLA and Berkeley--because of their admission standards and the existence of Michigan State, Virginia Tech, NC State, etc., for the folks that don't make the cut.

[man4857]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

So in other words: you're OK with Phoenix being the nation's 5th largest city, but still acting like a small town?! Sorry, but with your attitude, Phoenix will continue to attract people with few skills and little ambition who want nothing more out of life except warmer weather & sunshine. With your attitude, Phoenix will continue to be looked down on by much of the nation as little more than a sprawling mass of concrete in the middle of a hot unforgiving desert with not much to offer. With your attitude, Phoenix will continue to be passed over for better opportunities in every aspect.

By the way, we can be a world class metro area and still maintain a reasonable cost of living. Dallas and Houston are two metro areas that I would call world class (or close to it at the very least), yet their housing is still affordable, cost of living is reasonable (not cheap), and best of all there is no state income tax in Texas. The Phoenix area needs fewer NIMBYs like you.

I'm not saying I'm against all growth. Our geography makes building more housing somewhat of an issue as Maricopa County is surrounded by Indian reservations (unless you want to build wayyyyyy out there) in which we have no right to expand beyond our city boundaries.

The only way we can compensate for a world class city is to become denser, not sprawlier. I mean, given how sprawling everything is nowadays, let's see how much pushback you get from current property owners if you want to plop down a skyscraper outside of DT Phoenix. But we don't want to build skyscrapers everywhere. We still want to have choices for people to live in. A downtown busy dense area, surrounded by suburbs with single family homes.

But as it is right now, we're building housing at a reasonable pace and lots of people are moving here. The market is getting stronger and tighter. We don't need anymore attention until we can build our way past the influx of people already moving here over the next 2 decades. If Amazon decides to pick Phoenix to settle down into, that's fine, but we shouldn't actively pursue them with all the tax breaks and incentives possible. We still have to do a reasonable job at planning for the metro area future. Neglecting that aspect would be detrimental to the quality of living you're used to now. (Unless you want to go for a metropolis like LA with clogged freeways and ultra dense single family properties).

That was my point. We need to build more infrastructure, zone more smartly to reduce the number of people from using cars to get everywhere. Also we need to expand freeway capacity by widening and building new freeways as well as expanding mass transit. We also need to build a ton of new housing. If you keep COL reasonable, people will come as other cities can't get their stuff together and when people come, so will the businesses and their culture (diversity!). Let it happen organically.

We also need to kind of invest in our schools. Since our public school system is literally dead last. We also need to invest in ASU/UA/NAU to train more people.

[goolsbyjazz]

Uhhh, I thought Amazon released a list of the 20 cities it was considering? I saw the list and Phoenix wasn't on it. Isn't this a mute topic now?

[DetroitN8V]

Originally Posted by goolsbyjazz

Uhhh, I thought Amazon released a list of the 20 cities it was considering? I saw the list and Phoenix wasn't on it. Isn't this a mute topic now?

Moot, maybe. The discussion has evolved into why we weren’t selected and how the area can better position itself.

[goolsbyjazz]

Originally Posted by DetroitN8V

Moot, maybe. The discussion has evolved into why we weren’t selected and how the area can better position itself.

Thanks! Hadn't noticed that the doggone auto-correct got me!

[Potential_Landlord]

Maybe we can apply for the 1st headquarters now that we lost out on the second? - Win bigly!

[jimj]

Originally Posted by Potential_Landlord

Maybe we can apply for the 1st headquarters now that we lost out on the second? - Win bigly!

Maybe we can accuse the other cities that still remain in contention of collusion instead and force Amazon via a "friendly" judge court order to come here?
Attempt a win by any and all means!

Seriously though, AZ was never seriously in contention. We don't have the public transportation nor the tech infrastructure that a project that big would require. Nor do we have the amount of bribe money available that Amazon is being offered AND will get from other locations.

[Pink Jazz]

So many conspiracy theories why Phoenix wasn't selected, from racism to collusion by other cities. I highly doubt any of those were the primary reason why Phoenix wasn't selected. Public transportation and education, as well as geography were probably far more important reasons why Phoenix wasn't selected.

[yukon]

I suspect we weren't chosen because we're too close to the existing HQ location.