Amazon HQ2 thread

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

If you were Bezos would you pick Chicago?

if i were bezos, i'd put HQ2 on the fucking moon.

how forward thinking would that be!

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

If you were Bezos would you pick Chicago?

A very Good and fare question.

There 3 to 4 cites that make sense imo.


Google and Check out an Atlana business based site selection magazine and check every March issue of the last 10 years.

They update every 4 months. They measure and grade in their march issues.


They measure every city MSA on relocations and corporate expansions ever single year.


Than let me know what you think of their analysis.


https://siteselection.com/


Every year By month.

https://siteselection.com/pastissu.cfm

Than in the March issues look for the titles Top Metros

They should look like these



https://siteselection.com/issues/2017/mar/top-metropolitans-of-2016.cfm

https://siteselection.com/issues/2016/mar/top-metropolitans.cfm

https://siteselection.com/issues/2015/mar/top-metros.cfm

https://siteselection.com/issues/2014/mar/metros.cfm

...

...

...

https://siteselection.com/issues/2004/mar/p181/

Its just pure raw data, that's all

[chris08876]

In the end, we should all be grateful that its in a city.

At least its not some sort of trick where in the end, it winds up in some suburban office park.


Credit: planetizen



Office Parks are literally dread and gloom. Just terrible places.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by bnk

A very Good and fare question.

There 3 to 4 cites that make sense imo.


Google and Check out an Atlana business based site selection magazine and check every March issue of the last 10 years.

They update every 4 months. They measure and grade in their march issues.

They measure every city MSA on relocations and corporate expansions ever single year.

Than let me know what you think of their analysis.

It's hard to imagine a more irrelevant count than "number of projects." As a general contractor I've found this publication useless.

[Khantilever]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's hard to imagine a more irrelevant count than "number of projects." As a general contractor I've found this publication useless.

What makes Site Selection work is the fact that they’ve kept their methodology consistent for a very long time. So unlike many other publications’ rankings on different topics where the metrics are regularly tweaked to generate more variation - and, thus, publicity - Site Selection has a clear methodology and easily analyzable measure.

No individual metric is going to give you a perfect picture. If we weight the projects by size of investment, for example, then we’re probably going to end up with a ranking of cities by population. If we rank cities by project size relative to GMP, we’ll end up with a really noisy measure given the wide dispersion in project sizes.

[mhays]

It's a remarkably bad measure. Consistency only takes you so far.

Anecdotally, they also seem to miss a lot. This isn't surprising since every widespread info-gathering method is hugely flawed...reporting by the companies (who often try hard to keep things quiet), various states' tax records which might or might not have this info, permits which might only cover ancillary work (like the foundation but not the tool), and so on.

I'd LOVE to find useful annual tallies of the various kinds of work by state in the sectors my company works in (manufacturing, office, multifamily, retail, hotel, education, and so on), but they...simply...don't...exist. Only halfassed attempts exist.

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

if i were bezos, i'd put HQ2 on the fucking moon.

how forward thinking would that be!

either not very, or too much.
he'd have to team up with Elon Musk to ferry back and forth from the earth.

[skyscraperpage17]

If this has anything to do with HQ2, this is a huge plus for Atlanta.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/09/amazon-reportedly-launching-a-delivery-service-for-businesses.html

[10023]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

If this has anything to do with HQ2, this is a huge plus for Atlanta.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/09/amazon-reportedly-launching-a-delivery-service-for-businesses.html

Why?

I can only assume you’re alluding to Hartsfield, in which case, 1) there are other big logistics hubs in the running, and 2) much more importantly, that has absolutely nothing at all to do with where they’d put a headquarters.

Why on earth do people keep thinking that Amazon’s HQ(s) need to be anywhere near its warehouses or data centers? No company’s HQ needs to be near its “factories”. Hell, Boeing moved to Chicago expressly so that its HQ had as much separation as possible from its main manufacturing bases in WA and SC.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

if i were bezos, i'd put HQ2 on the fucking moon.

how forward thinking would that be!

That's stupid. Now a floating city on the cloud is genius.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

That's stupid. Now a floating city on the cloud is genius.

Perhaps he can collaborate with Elon Musk on the SpaceX program to put the HQ2 on Mars.

[Khantilever]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's a remarkably bad measure. Consistency only takes you so far.

Anecdotally, they also seem to miss a lot. This isn't surprising since every widespread info-gathering method is hugely flawed...reporting by the companies (who often try hard to keep things quiet), various states' tax records which might or might not have this info, permits which might only cover ancillary work (like the foundation but not the tool), and so on.

I'd LOVE to find useful annual tallies of the various kinds of work by state in the sectors my company works in (manufacturing, office, multifamily, retail, hotel, education, and so on), but they...simply...don't...exist. Only halfassed attempts exist.

Not sure I follow your critique. They set a pretty low bar for a project to qualify (new construction plus 20+ news employees or 20k+ more sq ft or $1m+ in construction). I'm sure they do miss many projects, but for the purposes of a *ranking* that doesn't matter so long as they're missing projects in a manner that doesn't vary by city.

I'm not suggesting this data be used for much more than a ranking or a general sense of where expansions/relocations are occurring. But I don't think its imperfections render it useless, either. I originally looked into this data for my research and, while it doesn't really serve the purposes of my own research agenda, I think it's an interesting measure that isn't easily proxied by any other readily available data.

But I can understand your pain. In my case I don't need the full universe of projects - just an unbiased sample. But in your case if you're looking for leads or something then you would ideally like as close to a universal sample as possible.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

Perhaps he can collaborate with Elon Musk on the SpaceX program to put the HQ2 on Mars.

Well the re-ignition of that second stage single engine to get into deep space caused an overshoot of the mars orbit. I guess he won't have a car when he get's to Mars

[JManc]

Originally Posted by skyscraper

either not very, or too much.
he'd have to team up with Elon Musk to ferry back and forth from the earth.

They have a head start...there's a Tesla Roadster already in space for Bezos to use.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Khantilever

Not sure I follow your critique. They set a pretty low bar for a project to qualify (new construction plus 20+ news employees or 20k+ more sq ft or $1m+ in construction). I'm sure they do miss many projects, but for the purposes of a *ranking* that doesn't matter so long as they're missing projects in a manner that doesn't vary by city.

I'm not suggesting this data be used for much more than a ranking or a general sense of where expansions/relocations are occurring. But I don't think its imperfections render it useless, either. I originally looked into this data for my research and, while it doesn't really serve the purposes of my own research agenda, I think it's an interesting measure that isn't easily proxied by any other readily available data.

But I can understand your pain. In my case I don't need the full universe of projects - just an unbiased sample. But in your case if you're looking for leads or something then you would ideally like as close to a universal sample as possible.

Not adjusting for size is problem. A billion (or a big Amazon warehouse) should count more than a million.

The number of projects can even rise when the dollar volume goes down. Sometimes the choice is an all-new plant (one project) or 20 incremental changes to an old plant in another town. It's better to be the city with the new plant.

Their information can be data points if read by someone who understands the context and its limits, but it's way to sketchy for general use.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

if i were bezos, i'd put HQ2 on the fucking moon.

how forward thinking would that be!

Too easy, it's just a satellite of boring Earth and we've already been there a really long time ago.

How about Mars?

E) Didn't see this post, but same idea!

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

Perhaps he can collaborate with Elon Musk on the SpaceX program to put the HQ2 on Mars.

[AviationGuy]

After standing up biz group, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick lobs bombs their way

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--r...-bombs-their-way/q91CYJvGjAPL3zj4MJl9rM/

Three weeks ago, the Texas Association of Business, which backs establishment Republicans and last year went to war with Patrick over his so-called bathroom bill, described Patrick as “the preeminent voice for principled conservative policies” and announced he would speak at its annual conference.

I posted this because the Texas Association of Business, which obviously has been courting Amazon for HQ2, has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth. The association, which is composed mainly of establishment Republicans, fought with Lt. Governor Dan Patrick over his bathroom bill in the last session because it feared a negative impact on Texas business (as per what happened in NC). But three weeks ago, the association decided to tout Patrick as the "preeminent voice for principled conservative policies". He still didn't show up at their meeting, but the association's touting Patrick may not sit well with Amazon (that part is my opinion).

It would be a travesty for Amazon to locate in a state so dominated by bigoted Republicans. The fact that Texas is still in the running indicates that they might, though.

If you want a chuckle for the day, take a look at Patrick's comment on why clean water and clean air are important. Although it's funny, it does show the lack of regard for the environment by Republicans both in political leadership and at the voting level. It seems that Amazon would consider this offensive as well. At least I hope so.

[IrishIllini]

When is the decision? I need to know whether I should rush into buying a multifamily building in the city or not

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by mhays

Not adjusting for size is problem. A billion (or a big Amazon warehouse) should count more than a million.

The number of projects can even rise when the dollar volume goes down. Sometimes the choice is an all-new plant (one project) or 20 incremental changes to an old plant in another town. It's better to be the city with the new plant.

Their information can be data points if read by someone who understands the context and its limits, but it's way to sketchy for general use.

I think the part that you may be missing here is that these kinds of variations are a type of "statistical noise" that, over the course of many years, cancel each other out. Ultimately, the cities that are at the top of this list year after year aren't just getting there by chance. There is something going on there that explains this persistent trend.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

When is the decision? I need to know whether I should rush into buying a multifamily building in the city or not

You could always buy in Toronto now.