[marothisu]

^ I understand exactly what the article is saying and if you've remembered my posts, I totally agree with the CEO here as that's what I've been stating for numerous months now. At the same time though, there's a difference in saying "I don't want Amazon here because we will be fine without them" and "We'll be fine without Amazon, but it certainly won't hurt." Yes, Chicago is going to be fine with or without Amazon, but Chicago with Amazon is going to propel it much further faster than without it - EASILY.

Personally, if Amazon doesn't pick Chicago I wouldn't be concerned or sad about it but if they did pick Chicago then damn ..it would be the start of a potentially fun ride. Also, as you are a real estate investor (I think), I would think that it would be of interest to you.

Also, the amount of startups and home grown companies would easily kick into high gear probably a year later. When you have thousands of workers coming in for something like this, you bet your ass that there will be numerous who leave to start their own companies. Many of which possibly wouldn't have started if those people would have never been lured to Chicago in the first place and been set up around whomever. There's a reason why areas like Boston, Seattle, etc have so much of this at the end of the day - a lot of people were lured by large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc and ultimately formed their own stuff. If not for those companies luring them there, they could have formed a company elsewhere.