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Originally Posted by lio45
And I agree with mhays, I've always thought it was a no brainer that whenever a San Francisco firm wants an HQ2, they shouldn't put it in a place like Boston or Seattle, but rather a city that complements the one that has HQ1 by having the opposite advantages: cheap real estate, tons of suburbia, tons of room, easy access to SFHs with backyards, short commutes, warm weather.
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I didn't say all that...just that I think "opposite" might be what Amazon is looking for.
Seattle isn't an easy candidate for an HQ2, but we're going nuts with expansions on the next level down. For example, Google and Facebook each have several buildings in Seattle and the metro for engineering type uses. Basically every major tech seems to be expanding here. Based on growth in this decade from San Francisco area firms alone, the trajectory is kind of like SF's collective "second center" came here. Not the support centers or manufacturing, but the high-wage stuff.
Why are they coming? Because while we're not an opposite, we're different enough to draw a lot of people who won't go to SF. A young engineer can do well on $100,000 here, without roommates, because our rents are (guessing) 60% of SF's. The climate is also pretty different. Offices are also significantly less expensive. Yet we have a down-scaled version of many of the same urban attributes. In some ways it's really helpful that we're the same time zone.
Our urbanity falls off outside of core areas, but those core areas are densifying at a furious pace. A big part of that is greater Downtown. As of a certain groundbreaking about 10 days ago, the greater-Downtown housing boom just hit 30,000 new units broken ground on since mid-2010. It's possible to live an urban life here. Amazon says 20% of their HQ1 staff walk or bike to work, and other reports suggest that only a quarter drive alone.