Quote:
Originally Posted by Eapiwo
I hope I'm not off topic but I'd like to add to the discussion that Amazon is looking for a second city to headquarter in "HQ2" to place 50,000 employees in and their requirements are that they would like to be in a city with a population of 1,000,000+, a large airport, easy access to mass transit, and a good work/life balance. Technically Tucson meets those requirements, barely. For each of the three categories Tucson only barely inches itself into but those are just the requirements unique to this search as I would imagine they'd still want a highly educated workforce which Tuctown lacks. However I think the spirit of the city here is fairly strong akin to that of Atlanta and Los Angeles, we're just much much smaller. I'm not sure how convinced Tucson's leadership is that it can ever win Amazon but it's a fun idea to play with.
If a company were to bring in 50,000 jobs to our city I speculate that - - We'd be approaching 1.3 million people (at the least) residing in Pima County by the 2030 Census
- We'll start to see an increase in wealth and will rank lower on poorest cities list
- Our status as a city would dramatically change, likely in a similar way to Austin.
- Downtown would most definitely see its new tallest towers for the offices alone, as some high rise apartments and hotels would be sure to follow. Likely to rival Phoenix's skyline
- Developing mass transit across the metro would be much more viable
- Sports teams would come and stay
- ADOT still will not have ever considered widening I-10 East of Kino
- Tucson would attract other businesses, high paying jobs
- Incorporation of Vail or other areas? Still seems unlikely however expansion of existing areas seems probable.
While it sure isn't up to the same standards of other cities, Amazon would single handedly brought Tucson up to the ranks of the rest of America's happening cities if they relocated here, which would be a pretty cool sight. I don't think many other small to mid sized American cities would be able to transform to hold a 50,000 new employees but Tucson has prepared for it with the revitalization of downtown and with the exception of I-10, could easily grow by another large sum of people.
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon...t-data-decide/ |
The biggest advantage that Tucson has is that we have a cheap cost of living and a developing work/life culture. I think Amazon will choose a cheaper city given the lashing out they've received from the Seattle Community regarding gentrification. Despite this, I think we would still be behind many others cities including Detroit, Baltimore or even Phoenix.
Besides continuing focus on downtown revitalization, I think the best thing that can be done is continue to attract smaller headquarters (ala Caterpillar) that can directly draw from and feedback into U of A programs. I think that will create the kind of presence that attracts big headquarters in the same vein that Stanford, UT Austin and University of Washington are intimately connected to the business communities of San Jose, Austin and Seattle respectively,
U of A produces so much STEM talent that is exported around country. Its a shame that more isn't done to bring those companies to Tucson instead of sending our professionals to them.