CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[F1 Tommy]

I bet we get the HQ2 answer right after the elections. Also Dallas and Atlanta can't be counted out on the shortlist.

Here is my shortlist in order:

Washington Metro (based mainly on all the media reports, but I think it would not be a good choice)
New York, although expensive as hell has the best of everything but to expensive.
Chicago, the best option overall due to costs and large talent pool.
Atlanta/Dallas tie. Both have a good talent pool, Atlanta a bigger airport
I don't think Boston is that good a choice as it's to expensive and costs all most as much as NYC. So why not just go to NYC?? Also Boston's airport is not nearly as good as any of the other shortlist contenders. I also don't think he is dumb enough to pick MIA.

[marothisu]

I think the only thing working against NYC is the cost. Newark would be ok but then again...it's Newark

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Such nonsense. Every company might as well be in DC if lobbying the Feds required having your whole HQ there....

Not to mention that in reality an executive might want to personally have access to a power center, but he or she also probably knows that if you're close to the power and the power turns against you, you could become an example for them. Generally, I think the vast majority of corporations would rather be far enough away to not be easy pickings to be made an example of.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

I bet we get the HQ2 answer right after the elections. ...

I don't think so this is all about Amazon. They want to be The Story.

The election results will be the top news for two weeks at least. I expect late November or December.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I think LY is far too detached from good transit. The 78 makes perfect sense.

LY transit isn't terrible. It's not ideal, but it's better than I think many people think. And it could get a lot better depending on what is planned to be added for transit. An Amazon presence might nudge up the relative importance of the Circle Line, with an alternative that jogs up to Cortland instead of just North Ave. That would solve their transport problems and add everything else to the region the Circle Line promised. Yeah, that's a ten year project, but it would have plenty of benefits.

[JK47]

Originally Posted by Notyrview

Oh man, that's a bummer. But no doubt good for the people of DC.

This is pretty compelling stuff from the article:

"Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, already owns the biggest newspaper and the largest mansion in Washington, and his ties to the city have long been a reason that the region tops most lists predicting HQ2’s result. It doesn’t hurt, either, that choosing the area would put Amazon in the backyard of lawmakers just as talk about the company’s labor practices and potential antitrust regulation is picking up."

It would really help if columnists writing about politics actually understood politics. Being close to Washington only works if you need access to agencies or lawmakers and don't want to use intermediaries like lobbyists or trade groups. Being a large employer in the area isn't really going to influence Congress because each member is more concerned about the constituencies that vote for them than the constituency that makes up their place of business (for example: See the slogan DC puts on their license plates). What isn't clear is how Amazon's recruiting and retention goals are satisfied by a NoVA location. Sure it's near critical network infrastructure in NoVA but this is a headquarters project not an engineering or trading project that requires absolute bests in speed and capacity. The universities in the area around DC skew more towards the liberal arts, particularly law and government, than the sciences like engineering.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by JK47

It would really help if columnists writing about politics actually understood politics. Being close to Washington only works if you need access to agencies or lawmakers and don't want to use intermediaries like lobbyists or trade groups. Being a large employer in the area isn't really going to influence Congress because each member is more concerned about the constituencies that vote for them than the constituency that makes up their place of business (for example: See the slogan DC puts on their license plates). What isn't clear is how Amazon's recruiting and retention goals are satisfied by a NoVA location. Sure it's near critical network infrastructure in NoVA but this is a headquarters project not an engineering or trading project that requires absolute bests in speed and capacity. The universities in the area around DC skew more towards the liberal arts, particularly law and government, than the sciences like engineering.

Yep - and has been mentioned here before, if this really mattered so much then you'd see a lot more business people who are influential in government actually living in DC. The reality is that there's more truly influential people living in places like NYC, LA, Chicago, etc than the DC area itself. It's amazing how a lot of people know on a low level about lobbying, yet somehow in these articles they think that you need to be around DC to be influential. It's really weird. They're treating this thing as if it's just him and a few others opening an office and nobody else instead of a place with up to 50,000 workers, most of whom aren't executives at any level. If it was just him and some of the top level executives looking for a new home, then I'd totally buy into the DC hype for the reasons they state (i.e. having a mansion there). Otherwise to me, they aren't primary, secondary, or even tertiary reasons to invest billions of dollars on a new campus for 50,000 mostly regular workers. Either the journalists/analysts behind this are that dumb or they're all being paid by someone to hype up DC for these specific reasons.

[bnk]

They are both dumb and hyping

The worst of two worlds combining.


Boeing made a similar choice out of three.


I thing we are down to three locations at this point and would not be supposed if they have already made their choice and are just now squeezing as much incentives as they can from the said choice


Why else would Indy be one of the top 20 other than to squeeze even more from a close by regional second h.q.2 they don’t even have a real international airport for cripes sake

They and 15 others never even met the minimum reqirement what the sire selection process asked for.


What concerns me the most is the betting sites that have no va in the tops from the begining

Smart money does not like to lose and Chicago as far as futures are still a long shot.

I haven’t checked on the futures but as far as last week no va still has the lowest odds of any market

The DC House is a nothing as others have stated. He could buy anywhere anything he wants anytime he wants


But there must be some kind of insider info by now


Perhaps the betting sites will adjust their odds over the next month to save them from getting screwed




But as of late the odds have not changed and there seems to be no movement as af the last few days

[IrishIllini]

I want the Amazon thread reopened

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by bnk

Boeing made a similar choice out of three.

Boeing's HQ move was about executives. Completely apples to oranges to what Amazon is trying to do.

Why else would Indy be one of the top 30 other than to squeeze even more from a regional hq

Top 20. Why? Who knows. I think Amazon knows that metro areas like Indianapolis, Columbus, Nashville, etc are too small for what they need but probably listed them to give them credit for at least being metros that others should pay attention to. That's my theory at least. I don't think any of these smaller metros were ever serious contenders. I'd be absolutely shocked if one of those 3 was chosen.

[BonoboZilla]

I'm enjoying reading all your comments on Amazon a lot. So many strong opinions and pretty solid arguments, especially ones pointing out how the writers seem to be using pretty horrible logic.

Personally, I have no clue what they might choose, because as you all point out, it seems like logic would not have Maryland, NoVA or DC in the top 20, but here we are with them being the clear front runners according to the media and betting sites. I hope they are wrong, but I guess I'll just keep being patient since I have no idea what might happen.

[marothisu]

Just some random data for the 19 US sites selected for Amazon. This is the number of software/web developers and computer programmers according to the BLS (OES dataset) for mid 2017. Some of the DC and NYC stuff were weird since there's multiple areas for both. Needless to say, the entire NYC area is #1 regardless in pure numbers and DC is #2. However, I did metro divisions for some of these.. Also Boston's data is incomplete so it's not listed, BUT using 2016 data we can estimate that it could anywhere from 2nd to 4th. Higher than Chicago by probably around 10,000 people and around the same as the DC Metro Division and Los Angeles MSA

1. NYC Metro Division: 97,420 people
2. Los Angeles MSA: 67,670 people
3. DC Metro Division: 61,390 people
4. Chicago: 52,140 people
5. Dallas MSA: 51,390 people
6. Atlanta MSA: 42,510 people
7. Philadelphia MSA: 38,140 people
8. Denver MSA: 29,000 people
9. Austin, TX MSA: 25,770 people
10. Miami MSA: 19,370 people
11. Newark, NJ Metro Division: 17,970 people
12. Columbus, OH MSA: 15,920 people
13. Pittsburgh MSA: 13,150 people
14. Raleigh MSA: 12,970 people
15. Silver Spring/Frederick/Rockville MD Metro Division: 11,100 people
16. Indianapolis MSA: 10,920 people
17. Nashville MSA: 7900 people

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by BonoboZilla

I'm enjoying reading all your comments on Amazon a lot. So many strong opinions and pretty solid arguments, especially ones pointing out how the writers seem to be using pretty horrible logic.

Personally, I have no clue what they might choose, because as you all point out, it seems like logic would not have Maryland, NoVA or DC in the top 20, but here we are with them being the clear front runners according to the media and betting sites. I hope they are wrong, but I guess I'll just keep being patient since I have no idea what might happen.

Nobody knows what's going to happen, except maybe the people at Amazon (and any consultants) who are privy to most of the details of this. I'd imagine that most employees of Amazon have been in the dark about this. A few months after HQ2 was announced, I asked my friend who was a manager there at the time where he thought it would go, and half of the places he mentioned didn't even make the top 20 (i.e. Houston).

The issue of the journalist really goes on peoples' misconceptions about the tech industry itself. So many different roles out there to support a large company making software of any kind as we've discussed.

Talent is also something that's kind of hard to truly measure. Many software developers are pretty full of themselves in reality about their abilities and a lot of people who don't really work in the industry just kind of buy into the hype blindly for a few geographical areas. There are a lot of talented engineers in the Bay Area, but it's basically like how people assume they're great actors once they get an LA address or a great chef once they get a NYC address.

The majority of software developers are doing work that's not necessarily hard to make functional (from the standpoint of actually knowing how to develop that is). Unfortunately - a lot of people mistake being able to make something functional with it being an actual good solution. It would be like thinking that everyone who can architect a 5 story building so someone can erect it is automatically a great and really talented architect. There's a million ways to create various parts of software - just because something works doesn't mean it's actually a good solution. A lot of software out there really isn't coded very well (some is, a lot isn't). It's kind of complicated to explain, but I'll just say that getting something to work doesn't mean you are good at what you're doing in terms of software development.

So with that being said, I think a lot of people who aren't in the industry relate something like the ability to get funding too much to true tech talent. Most of the stuff out there isn't really that hard to create. Like the average Facebook engineer isn't really doing anything groundbreaking on average that requires a degree from MIT or anything. There is some stuff like that at all of these companies, but truly it's only a very small percentage of people who actually designed and implemented it.

So I really find it funny how some of these articles try and rank talent. I honestly have no idea how they even do that. Just because an area has a bunch of startups doesn't mean that the average talent level is greater than a place with less startups and VC funding. It's really weird to me, personally, that they even have rankings for this thing alone. It's not something that you can really easily rank because it's just hard to rank, and also a bit subjective (i.e. I may have different parameters for thinking someone is talented versus somebody sitting right next to me).


Also, this blog post is hilarious but also pretty true:
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

Something like this is pretty damn true

Remember that stuff about crazy people and bad code? The internet is that except it’s literally a billion times worse. Websites that are glorified shopping carts with maybe three dynamic pages are maintained by teams of people around the clock, because the truth is everything is breaking all the time, everywhere, for everyone. Right now someone who works for Facebook is getting tens of thousands of error messages and frantically trying to find the problem before the whole charade collapses.

Also very true:

All programming teams are constructed by and of crazy people

[bnk]

Originally Posted by k1052

I could see them splitting it between Newark and Chicago.

As far as sites here I'd expect LY to still be favored but they are checking out the only other comparable option.

I have stated this too but it does not be in that particular order. But as far as the best clear site walking distance to the trains and DT its the 78 hands down....

Nope the 78 is the best option for Amazon by far IMO. Best transit access with improvements idealized. The 78 really is not that far from both the major Metro Stations.

One would also see an enormous amount of dedicated river taxis that can move thousands quickly. Its not that far and they could even have their own dedicated harbor to do it.

And screw river ice. The Ice Breakers would stop for nothing to keep the lanes open, in addition to the amount of river taxis. There would not be one month in the year or week the lanes would be not clear. Unless someone has not taken the water Taxi to Chinatown no one could even imagine the open space there. Its huge and buildings to the east closer to the lake keep going up. The south loop will not have the stigma it used to have even 10 years ago regardless if Amazon chooses that site or not. It is so close and prime its amazing it has been weed fields as long as it has been. We have all been to the top of the Sears tower and looked aghast at empty land so close to DT.

Or any picture looking north and at the Sears through the wheat fields. Chicago is really weird when it comes to the south loop. Its going to pop like the west loop someday and be much taller irregardless of Amazon. I mean really look at how close that property is to DT and the rail stations. Its almost insane that nothing is there, and I mean really.

We all know of the disaster that is Dearborn Park and hope it never happens again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Ftpl55DBk

This is our chance to extend the skyline south and all the way to Hyde Park if we do it right.


I could even see them splitting it 3-4 ways and all of this second HQ2 headquarters was a bunch of shit until they realized it might be better to spread it around. [ they may have had a difficult decision between 3 and say screw it 15000 jobs at each site and lets spread it around and have enough influence in 3 states [ vs throwing all of their eggs in one basket ] "You get a car, and you get a car, and you get a car!!!"



It might be too difficult to choose just one location that why maybe we are 17 months into this thingy and still pretty much radio silence other an some metros getting revisits.

But I am less worried now than I was in the past when Rahm is stepping away from running again. He clearly would have been re-elected no problem on the first ballot and if it came to the second he would clean it up easily. He has all of the pro business people behind him. No one could have stopped him from being re-elected.




I personally believe he is going to make a financial killing on some part of Chicago Amazon something. He needs Real money and this is his easiest path to so do.

So I would expect him to press the flesh of the local and state government and the business community and make it an easy transition to get some of it, or hell all of it, in Chicago and make buco bucks doing so. $$$

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Amazon should go to the 78, they can build their entire impact on the city entirely on that site, where else can you say that's true? They could literally build offices for 50,000 and 50,000 new apartments and it could basically be self contained.

Hell we can rename the neighborhood to Amazonas and it'll be a less shitty name.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Hell we can rename the neighborhood to Amazonas and it'll be a less shitty name.

BTW the name the 78 is not set in stone and is flexible.


Its easy to look up and google.

[the urban politician]

From September but a good read from US News and World Report:

Why tech companies choose Chicago

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...oosing-chicago

[Kumdogmillionaire]

I'm wondering how the current Chicago mayoral will impact Amazon's approach to the city. It appears to me that most of those running have no clue how to fix anything other than kick the can further down the road. With Rahm gone I put our chances at a big ole fucking goose egg...

Who knows who they'll pick, but it isn't our shitshow of a city. If we were stable I'd say we'd be the frontrunner, but we are on the verge of complete collapse

[left of center]

Rahm's departure definitely did not help our chances. He really is the only person that focused on trying to fix the systemic budget issues this city has.

Most other candidates keep preaching about how they plan on spending even more money on social programs, without providing any clues on how to pay for them, let alone help close the current budget gap the city faces.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by bnk

BTW the name the 78 is not set in stone and is flexible.


Its easy to look up and google.

We can just call it "the Amazon"...