Amazon HQ2 thread

[ssiguy]

OK, here's the thing about potential cities.

First, and probably the one most would agree on, is that the HQ has to be atleast in Central/Eastern timezone and hence basically east of the Mississipi. It also has to be a liberal and progressive area so with those 2 basic requirements that essentially wipes off any Sunbelt or Western/Mountain city.

It has to have robust transit and an airport to downtown link. That wipes out Detroit, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ciinncinati, Richmond and Charlotte/Research Triangle. I don't think Pittsburgh or Cleveland have a shot as they transit systems are too limited and both cities have a bad reputation. Although unfairly so in my opinion it doesn't change the fact they do.

So there you have it kids............we are basiclly down to just a few choice areas. NYC, Washington, Philly, Baltimore, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and Chicago.

To me Chicago has a lot going for it but Chicago, Philly, and Baltimore have one huge strike against them and it's a whopper.................they are the most dangerous and murderous cities in the Western world. It will be VERY hard for Chicago to claim it can get new hirees from around the world {or even in NA for that matter} when both the City and state are losing people and it enjoys 600 murders a year. Baltimore is even worse as it has the lure of great race riots to boot. Philly is also a very dangerous city.

Amazon specifically stated it wanted a safe city and none of those 3 qualify. Although Philly and Chicago have a lot of other great attributes, the sad reality is that both have murder rates that would make some Latin American cities blush. This is not a small deal but a huge one when needing to attract continental and international workers and equally important to be able to keep them.

I also don't think NYC has a chance. I know they have all the boxes checked with spades but I just think that if they were going to go with NYC they simply would have announced it.

It is or all the above reasons that I think the contest will be between Bos/Tor/Mon/Wash but if crime is less a consideration then Chicago and Philly as well but again it is both those cities Achilles Heel.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

It's just funny that you think only Chicago, DC, and NY are "world class" and inferring that they are the only cities with real downtowns.

No you made that inference yourself. I said "I think they should pick a city with the stature of Chicago or DC or NY."

That includes Toronto, Boston, LA, Mexico City etc.

Let's post some pics from Philly's Schuylkill Yard's development; this is shovel ready with room for them to grow. Last I checked, Amazon completely build part of Seattle's downtown and they have the same opportunity to do that in Philly while also being located in an affordable city, with tons of cultural amenities, one of the most educated student bases in the US, and that's proven it can house large technology companies by having Comcast located in the middle of the city.

That's nice.

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

OK, here's the thing about potential cities.

So there you have it kids............we are basiclly down to just a few choice areas. NYC, Washington, Philly, Baltimore, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and Chicago.

To me Chicago has a lot going for it but Chicago, Philly, and Baltimore have one huge strike against them and it's a whopper.................they are the most dangerous and murderous cities in the Western world. It will be VERY hard for Chicago to claim it can get new hirees from around the world {or even in NA for that matter} when both the City and state are losing people and it enjoys 600 murders a year. Baltimore is even worse as it has the lure of great race riots to boot. Philly is also a very dangerous city.

Amazon specifically stated it wanted a safe city and none of those 3 qualify. Although Philly and Chicago have a lot of other great attributes, the sad reality is that both have murder rates that would make some Latin American cities blush. This is not a small deal but a huge one when needing to attract continental and international workers and equally important to be able to keep them.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! So over dramatic. This is hyperbole at it's finest.

Chicago and Philadelphia are not even close to Latin American cities in crime rates.

I can't speak for Chicago, but Philadelphia is pretty middle of the pack when it comes to crime rates for US cities. Philadelphia is higher than Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, NYC, sure... but Philadelphia is about on par with Dallas, Houston, Nashville, Columbus, Miami, Pittsburgh, etc.

Philadelphia has a lower crime rate than Detroit, Baltimore, New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati, DC, etc. etc. Look up the numbers dude.

Cleveland
Murder Rate: 63 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 756 per 100,000

Baltimore
Murder Rate: 55 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 776 per 100,000

Detroit
Murder Rate: 44 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 759 per 100,000

New Orleans
Murder Rate: 42 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 568 per 100,000

Washington DC
Murder Rate: 24 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 592 per 100,000

Cincinnati
Murder Rate: 22 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 595 per 100,000

Memphis
Murder Rate: 21 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 770 per 100,000

Atlanta
Murder Rate: 21 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 607 per 100,000

Pittsburgh
Murder Rate: 19 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 377 per 100,000

Chicago
Murder Rate: 18 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 426 per 100,000

Miami
Murder Rate: 17 per 100,00
Crime Rate: 501 per 100,000

Philadelphia
Murder Rate: 17 per 100,000
Crime Rate: 485 per 100,000

Also, the best spot for Amazon in Philadelphia would be Schuylkill Yards/30th Street Station District. This is right next to Center City/Downtown, and in University City, which is next to Ivy League University of Pennsylvania, and Drexel University.... this is a safe location. We're not suggesting Amazon open HQ2 in the center of North Philadelphia.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by The North One

People are writing college essays all over this thread, who is honestly reading all of this?

Dude you got onto someone for posting a picture and now you're pretty much complaining people are writing too much. This is a forum, and you're not the forum God.

[Car(e)-Free LA]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

OK, here's the thing about potential cities.

First, and probably the one most would agree on, is that the HQ has to be atleast in Central/Eastern timezone and hence basically east of the Mississipi.

Really? I still think LA has one of the strongest possible bids, along with Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, NY, and Boston.

[38 Geary]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

It's just funny that you think only Chicago, DC, and NY are "world class" and inferring that they are the only cities with real downtowns.

Philly has a more than adequate downtown for sure. And Skullfill Yards (however you spell it - how do you guys remember how to spell this?!) looks like an ideal site. But if Amazon is looking for a truly world class city with global impact, then Philly is out. NYC, Chicago, Toronto, LA, DC, SF, and Miami are the places to be. However, if Amazon does decide on Philly, I believe it could be the start of helping Philly make that jump.

[38 Geary]

Originally Posted by Car(e)-Free LA

Really? I still think LA has one of the strongest possible bids, along with Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, NY, and Boston.

I think LA (and SF) are too close to Seattle. It'd make more sense for them to spread out more geographically.

[Jaborandi]

Originally Posted by Doady

Toronto is too vanilla and devoid of culture. It's a very boring city. No way Amazon would want to locate there.

But we have Sunday shopping and everything!

[Chef]

Does Amazon care if it is a "world class" city by SSP standards? I think posters here are projecting their own biases onto Amazon's thinking. It seems to me that they are looking for a place with quality of life that is easy to recruit to, tax breaks, and a cheaper city than Seattle if possible.

If you ask a normal person whether they want to live on 100k in New York or a cheaper, pleasant city, most people will choose the cheaper city. I think that has to figure into their thinking. I would be shocked if this thing goes to New York. I think Chicago is the most likely choice.

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

Really, have you traveled much? Cross-border travel is overwhelmingly easy in Canada. / Any recruited talent, or frequent visitor would have a passport; any medium or longer term relocatee would bring their family. ... / If you did leave your immediate family at home, you would surely get them passports. / You can get one in emergency situations issued extremely quickly.

This bolsters the point I made.

We do have laws against 'hate speech'; but they are used in only the rarest of cases. / And no, gender pronoun misuse is not covered by our hate speech laws. / For a discussion of that nonsense, see this article...

Hate speech is protected speech in the US; that is the whole point of freedom of speech. From the link article (and Vice is hardly unbiased), sanction can still occur, just not incarceration, for certain things. The fact that these discussions are even on the bubble in government is troubling, especially as to where things could lead in a decade or two. Anyway, given the current stage of things, Amazon will not be going as far as the civil liberties defenders on this point in choosing an office location.

If they located in Quebec, then language laws are more robust to protect French. / But in Toronto, no businesses don't have to produce any of their day to day paperwork or signage in 2 languages.

Of course not the day to day paperwork, but what about public-facing documents, like job descriptions, recruiting events, press releases, or even all their internal personnel policies, or requiring that all employee benefits be made available in multiple languages, such as daycare, wellness counseling, and so on? Would such things be limited to Quebec? It's hardly a deal killer, but if you have to hire duplicate support personnel in many cases, it's an additional cost.

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

You talk of freedom of speech and in one fell swoop disregard the need for official languages to be protected in corporate affairs. Enlightened folks in your country have taken Spanish out of the pantry and into everyday life. That has made things better, richer, not worse. The most successful companies in the world economy, the Apples and Googles are adamant about reaching out to all cultures, all languages. Your comments are muddled. On one hand you claim that Canada needs to reinforce freedoms and in the other you taketh away. What you mention about DUI's is a problem for canuckistanis going stateside as well.I think you are feeling the heat, eh?

But I am not criticizing these policies (multilingualism; morals test at the border). I'm just saying they add complexity for an organization that would have a hundred-thousand strong double headquarters straddling two countries (and for which, let's face it, French is not crucial). You also are not understanding the idea of free speech; it is a totally different concept than governments erecting bureaucratic requirements to duplicate things in multiple languages (which, again, I am not criticizing here, and can be appropriate depending on the locale).

[osmo]

Originally Posted by Car(e)-Free LA

Really? I still think LA has one of the strongest possible bids, along with Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, NY, and Boston.

California is taking a hit with population outflows, and it is one of the worst States to conduct business. It is all great for SV firms, many of which nowadays are getting generous subsidies to remain in place. I can't think of what universe a company would sign up to plop 50k workers in California and have to deal with much of the prohibitive red tape present in the State.

This situation in Cali is all without getting into housing costs and taxes also.

It isn't enough anymore to have nice weather. Cali is not competitive in the USA like it used to be and the outflows and meagre job growth shows this.

IMO this whole pitch by Amazon is to think of places that are not "obvious" - NYC or Cali. They could quickly go behind the scenes and negotiate deals with both areas and not need to have such a circus of this competition.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Doady

Toronto is too vanilla and devoid of culture. It's a very boring city. No way Amazon would want to locate there.

Chicago and all other American cities are warzones. American SSP forumers dodge bullets in between posting to the forums here. No way Amazon would want to locate there.

[a very long weekend]

The discussion about Toronto is really pointless, the town would be a great fit for Amazon, but Canadians don't seem to realize how controversial it would be, thus how totally unlikely.

Here's a good account from Brookings:

Inverting to Canada would send a strong message about the company’s attitudes about the U.S. political environment right now. But, again, Amazon does not think short term. Moving to Canada would send the wrong message at the wrong time. It would invite a costly and ongoing rebuke from President Trump and his supporters. It would also play into President Trump’s arguments about U.S. corporate tax policy—a debate Amazon probably wants to avoid. And if the president’s tax reform proposals do become law, the move to Canada could prove shortsighted.

Richard Florida put up a pretty good argument that it'll go somewhere in the DC area, based on the fact that Bezos owns the WaPo and just bought a giant mansion there, is rumored to want to run for president and, at any rate, needs to be a lot closer to the action there to move his agenda forward.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by Chef

Does Amazon care if it is a "world class" city by SSP standards? I think posters here are projecting their own biases onto Amazon's thinking.

Perhaps the best comment in the discussion so far.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Chicago and all other American cities are warzones. American SSP forumers dodge bullets in between posting to the forums here. No way Amazon would want to locate there.

I was shot 3 separate times walking around my neighborhood this afternoon.

We call that an average day in chicago.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by denizen467

Pearson Airport is #2 in North America in international traffic maybe because of .. tons of flights to the US? You'd have to exclude all that US traffic if you sought an apples-apples comparison. Naturally, your statistic also excludes EWR, for example. The list of air destinations is a little underwhelming.

If that's the case, then the destinations from every single airport in the world are also underwhelming. There is almost no airport on earth that's more connected internationally.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by denizen467

This bolsters the point I made.


Hate speech is protected speech in the US; that is the whole point of freedom of speech. From the link article (and Vice is hardly unbiased), sanction can still occur, just not incarceration, for certain things. The fact that these discussions are even on the bubble in government is troubling, especially as to where things could lead in a decade or two. Anyway, given the current stage of things, Amazon will not be going as far as the civil liberties defenders on this point in choosing an office location.


Of course not the day to day paperwork, but what about public-facing documents, like job descriptions, recruiting events, press releases, or even all their internal personnel policies, or requiring that all employee benefits be made available in multiple languages, such as daycare, wellness counseling, and so on? Would such things be limited to Quebec? It's hardly a deal killer, but if you have to hire duplicate support personnel in many cases, it's an additional cost.

Amazon would not need to do that stuff bilingually if it based this operation in Toronto.

Amazon already offers services in French for Canada. A Toronto HQ would neither increase or decrease this.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by denizen467

But I am not criticizing these policies (multilingualism; morals test at the border). I'm just saying they add complexity for an organization that would have a hundred-thousand strong double headquarters straddling two countries (and for which, let's face it, French is not crucial). You also are not understanding the idea of free speech; it is a totally different concept than governments erecting bureaucratic requirements to duplicate things in multiple languages (which, again, I am not criticizing here, and can be appropriate depending on the locale).

That is stretching it. The same clobberhead racist organizations have a footing in Canada and spew their hate speech and few ever get arrested or shut up by our governments or police. Hate speech is hate speech though, and should be defined as such, not a problem to be swept under the table. People who make light stuff of the millions who died in WW2 or the Civil War need to be confronted one way or another. Nevertheless, I can't imagine there are many more cases where Canadian courts or authorities have stifled free speech vis-à-vis their US counterparts.

Free speech in Canada is not.any more endangered than in the US. The usual stories are of groups or speakers denied access to college campus platforms. This happens in both countries.

[Cory]

Dear Amazon, We Picked Your
New Headquarters for You



By EMILY BADGER, QUOCTRUNG BUI and CLAIRE CAIN MILLER SEPT. 9, 2017


Amazon has set off a scrum among cities that are hoping to land the company’s second headquarters — with the winner getting the prize of a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs over the next two decades. We’re offering to help, using Amazon’s own criteria to identify a winning city.


The company announced this week that it was looking for a metropolitan area in North America with at least a million people, so we’ve started with the map above. (With apologies to Canada, we’ve set aside Toronto and several other large cities because they’re not included in most of the data sets we’ve used to determine which places meet Amazon’s needs.)


In the eight pages of guidance that Amazon has provided cities, one of its central requirements is a “stable business climate for growth.” That led us to this subset of places:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017...-amazon-new-headquarters-be.html?mcubz=0