re: Amazon chooses 20 finalists for its new headquarters

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bullshite

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I need to wake up and see mountains and have them at my disposal to ski, climb, bike, and escape the city. That is not an option in Atlanta. Hell, I wouldn't even live or work in Denver and that is why I am in Boulder to have those luxuries. Obviously I don't speak for everyone, but seriously there is no amount of money I could be paid to leave somewhere like Boulder for a concrete jungle like Atlanta

Location of Amazon HQ2 (Bovada):

Nashville +800
Washington, D.C. +1000
Atlanta +1200
Dallas/Austin/Philadelphia +1400
Pittsburgh/Indy/LA/Montgomery County +1500 Chicago/Denver +1600
New York City/Raleigh/Toronto/Northern Virginia/Newark +1800
Columbus/Boston/Miami +2000

Been banned for a week and wanted to share this text a Nashville commercial real estate buddy sent me:

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Interesting note: the lady running the internal economic development team @ Amazon is a former chamber/ECD sr exec from Nashville. Holly (sears) Sullivan

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Eta: def not saying Nashville will get it. We dont check all the boxes, but this can’t hurt

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Columbus, LA, Indianapolis, and Denver have no shot. Nashville has a slighter better than 0 shot.

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I’m a little late to this thread, we discussed this back in September and I think you had mentioned that you know someone in the know at Amazon and they were vying for Boston. I said it then and I think the list reflects this, but I believe the chances of some of these midsize cities in the Midwest and South are being vastly underrated, like Raleigh, Nashville, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. I thought Charlotte and maybe Cincinnati would be included over Indianapolis, and I think Indy is a tier below the rest, but these by and large these are all cities that are affordable and already doing well economically, with well educated populations.

Personally, I think Atlanta and Dallas may make more sense then the midsize cities because they are all relatively affordable with a much larger populations.

On the other hand, I think some of the east coast cities (DC, NY, Boston, Chicago), while always on short list for a major corporation, are being a little overvalued given the costs associated with placing HQs in those locations. The costs of living in those cities are upwards of 50 or 60 percent of more than those affordable cities listed.

I saw an estimate that these were $100,000 a year jobs,. Here in Columbus $100,000 would go about as far $160,000 in Boston. So even if Amazon would only need to offer salaries a 1/3 of that difference, $20,000 at 50,000 jobs is a billion a year. That’s not including the higher costs of things like construction and operations, plus even with incentives, the high tax states would need to make up a lot in tax breaks just to get comparable to the lower tax states, and cities and states are offering incentives too.

Now clearly these expensive cities make more sense without considering $$$$, but when we are talking potentially billions in costs yearly, are those other factors really enough to make up for it?

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Amazon

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Atlanta

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My money is on Austin or Atlanta.

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My money is on Austin or Atlanta.

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Austin makes a lot of sense, but they’re coming from Seattle which is one of the fastest growing cities (2.5% per year) with decreasing space and increasing costs. Austin is growing even faster at 3.1% per year. I’m not sure if a city could realistically be able to keep up with 3.1%, let alone adding 100,000s of thousands on top of that to the local area as a result 50,000 employees, their families, and the secondary jobs it would bring in.

Does anyone outside of city govt's really want this "HQ2".. (which is a very misleading name btw)

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Most of the regular atl-bashers are people who have only been in town to go to a sporting event. I mean, if your only exposure in your life to atlanta was the area around phillips/the dome I can see why you'd have a negative opinion, but it's simply ignorant. It's no different than people who base their opinion of NO off of their experience of a few blocks of the french quarter.

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We hate Atlanta because all cities without Super Bowl championships are shitholes

Montgomery? Lol
Yeah right... Alabama sucks