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1. I believe Amazon already knows the final location and they're dragging this out.
2. DC having 3 separate locations doesn't mean much. We don't know what those 3 locations are ranked, for all we know they could 18, 19, & 20. Plus those are 3 different "states" with 3 different governments and 3 different tax codes.
People have said there are 2 separate proposals for Atlanta, DFW, and Boston. Where are y'all finding that info?
I find it a little bit perplexing that an e-commerce and tech company, especially one that seeks more talent and resources, excluded the global capital of the technology industry, the San Francisco Bay Area.
Not a single San Francisco Bay Area city or outpost made the cut on to their short list (a list that isn't really all that short to begin with, considering 20 places made the cut). While the San Francisco Bay Area has the highest cost of living in the United States, almost across the board, "cost of living" didn't seem to be a problem for Amazon when they put the likes of Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington D.C. on their shortlist. So then why would it be a problem with the San Francisco Bay Area?
I don't have any personal leanings for HQ2, I thought Boston would get it initially and now don't much care so long as this selection process doesn't drag out for the duration of the year (that seems quite unfair to participants). However, if I were a Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay Area supporter, I'd find it quite vexing that only one place made the cut for California and it isn't even the biggest tech player in that state and that place being Los Angeles, not the San Francisco Bay Area (the true epicenter of the global tech industry).
Questionable move by Amazon. If you want to be captain of industry, you'd think they would go to their industry's epicenter or at least, at the bare minimum, consider it among their top options. The San Francisco Bay Area is the 5th largest PCSA in the United States and is the largest population center snubbed from Amazon HQ2's "shortlist" of 20.
It makes sense, cost is a big factor, it wouldn't make sense to set up a second hq in an even more expensive place, not that far away. And hiring and retaining the necessary staff there would be a big problem.
According to the list DC Metro is clearly the #1 contender.
I believe that "advantage" has already been explained in a couple of threads here. Several metros on the list had multiple submissions within their boundaries, but only the ones that traversed state lines were broken out separately (tax considerations). So any submissions within a selected metro are apparently also under consideration.
Atlanta, DC, Austin... so predictable. I'll go with the idea that they want a city they can be dominant, so one of the mid-size, less hipster metros- Columbus, Indy, etc.
Massachusetts offered 26 proposals to Amazon, with officials going all in on pitching the whole Bay State. But Boston, with its bid centering around Suffolk Downs, and Somerville, which focuses on interconnected sites along the Orange or Green Lines, caught the company's attention.
I do sort of remember the two Atlanta proposals, with one where a town just outside of the city was going to change it's name to Amazon, GA, I believe.
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