Atlanta is also subject to the whims of a state legislature that passed a "religious freedom bill" that required the governor's veto as recently as last year.

and sadly, a number of the gubernatorial candidates have indicated they are in favor of this bill.

Indeed. but metro Atlanta area itself is very progressive.

True, but I'm not referring here to whether the local community is politically progressive. The issue isn't whether there is nice record shops and an NPR affiliate.

I'm referring to the real possibility that Atlanta might become subject to laws that pretty much every corporation in America would consider a major downside when choosing where to site a HQ. I assume this is what they are referring to in the CFP when they talk about the "political stability" of a region.

Georgia is home to 17 Fortune 500 companies and a burgeoning film industry, it's not as "politically unstable" as you think. Mostly, money talks.

That probably excludes anywhere outside of the NE or West Coast.

Even then, the metro areas are blue, rest of the states are red, like everywhere else in the country.

> That probably excludes anywhere outside of the NE or West Coast.

ding ding ding! My bet would be on Pittsburgh. Maaaaybe Minneapolis, Madison, Detroit or Philadelphia.

probably not madison considering the government there.

I'm also betting on pittsburgh or perhaps minneapolis.

I am not familiar with Pittsburgh, but I was born in Minneapolis area. Great government, great people, but damn the winters are COLD.

> and an NPR affiliate

Just one NPR affiliate? We've got 2!

Some of our politicians are from the stone age though.

What about Chattanooga? It's in the same area with a rapidly-growing startup/tech scene, but it has gigabit municipal internet and a slightly cooler climate.

Chattanooga is great! Just not sure if they have the infrastructure to handle that big of a corp. And Gigbit is kinda passe by now.

Oh, I doubt they'll be worried about that. Seattle sure doesn't have the infrastructure necessary to support them!

They recently put a giant fulfillment center in Chattanooga- which really would make Atlanta an even better choice for HQ2

Atlanta was one of the top places that came to my mind given their requirements. It's really compares favorably with Seattle for size, access, tech talent.

Having grown up in ATL and moved to SEA I don't think there's a lot of tech talent in ATL, but there's tons of potential for that to change. GT's college of computing has ~4k undergrads and masters. There's also ga state and emory within a short drive.

Right now it seems like mailchimp is getting as much of the graduates as they can.

A reasonable choice to be sure, but I do disagree on the weather and mass transit part. Atlanta's urban sprawl means that fewer residents live near a transit stop than in most cities of comparable size. And the weather - obviously that's a personal choice, but for me the heat and humidity in summer is debilitating.

ATL does have marta it's just that white people neglected it for most of it's history.

The last year I lived in ATL I took marta to work as my commute.

Amazon needs to locate west / southwest in / just out of the city. It will be very convenient to the airport, existing MARTA lines, inject new life into that part of town, and it would be cheap for Amazon.

Summer is hot for sure. But in a world of AC I find it doesn't bother me as much. I go for a bike ride at 7 am when its 73 outside, and work all day!

As for the sprawl, there is a huge building boom going on inside the city, 10's if not a 100 thousand new apartments going up. Bike lanes being added, its actually becoming civilized!

> "no hurricanes"

Don't jinx it.

Agree. Atlanta is a great choice.

Except that I want to live in Atlanta even less than I want to live in Seattle. It has a kind of psychic oppression field over it that makes me want to immediately turn around and leave.

Atlanta looks good on paper. It always does. But actually being in the city tells me a different story.

That said, I think only Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, or Boston could absorb the extra demand for skilled employees without sucking the wind out of the other local businesses' sails. The Texan cities could, too, but I don't think Amazon will go there, for some reason.

If Amazon plopped down in Chattanooga or Harrisburg, or even Indianapolis or Detroit, it would exhaust the local talent pool immediately, and cause a local inflation bubble.

Nobody's going to Chicago. The state government is in shambles, and taxes are going way up. The state is flirting with insolvency.

Boston and NYC are all developed expensive. Atlanta still has undeveloped area inside the city limits or old industrial areas that can be removed and replaced.

Chattanooga wouldn't work because they want an international airport and major university.

Atlanta has the world's busiest airport and Georgia Tech (engineering), Emory (business, medicine). Atlanta is also a huge transportation hub of the Southeast.

Detroit is a cesspool, but does have the added advantage of everything being cheap, lots of places to develop, and lots of transportation infrastructure, but no international airport.

It looks like Amazon wrote this RFP for Atlanta.

> Nobody's going to Chicago.

Maybe nobody you know is going to chicago but 75% of my friends from the midwest have all congregated to chicago. I moved out west for the better tech jobs but I would instantly jump on the chance to move back to chicago to be close to friends and family.

I meant companies. They are going to steer clear of Illinois. Illinois is at the start of an economic death spiral. Roads are hugely underfunded. State workers' pensions are extremely underfunded, as in, state taxes are going to have to increase significantly beyond the tax increase passed this year for them to not default on their obligations and their other loan payments. Once they default on their loan payments, Illinois' ability to issue debt for capital expenditures like roads, road repairs, bridges and other infrastructure is limited to high risk / high interest loans.

Companies don't want to move to a state whose economic future and viability is in question.

They could always set up in Gary in Indiana or Kenosha in Wisconsin. Metra commuter rail goes out that far, so anyone wanting to live in Illinois proper could do so and commute outward instead of in.

Maybe I'm biased because I live here, but Chicago seems like a complete slam dunk for Amazon. We've got: good public transit, plenty of space for development, an educated workforce with a a decently sized tech talent pool already developed, easy draw from Big 10 schools and the University of Chicago, and a (relatively) low cost of living when compared to comparable cities. Yes, the state and city have financial problems, but watch how fast the gridlock disappears when an opportunity like this presents itself. As I said in another comment, the city has been really good at getting companies, both from the suburbs and from out of state, to setup headquarters in the loop.

Also, the blatant trolling for big bribes would fit right in with the local political culture.

Detroit has a rather large, comfortable, and underutilized international airport. U Michigan is close by, widely considered a top ten CS school.

Shit, they could probably buy the whole city!

And then change their name to Omni Consumer Products?

Georgia State is a reasonable school as well, not as glamorous as GT or Emory though.

I'm certainly bias as I grew up in ATL, but the RFP seemed to be written for Atlanta to me.

I'm sure Georgia State is reasonable, but it's just as reasonable as any other good state school in any other state. Georgia Tech and Emory are at the top of the list for their specialties though, engineering, computer science and business -- all things Amazon would find enticing.

As an Atlanta resident, I find it a terrible place to visit but a great place to live.

Great cities have (1) cool places to visit; and (2) lots of hidden gems - parks, restaurants, etc. - that take years to discover. Atlanta lacks the first, but has plenty of the second. That combined with good weather, great housing options and a Delta hub make it pretty nice to live in.

I feel the same way about Atlanta. And the money that I save by living here as opposed to a cool place to visit means I can actually afford to visit those places.

> That said, I think only ... could absorb the extra demand for skilled employees without sucking the wind out of the other local businesses' sails.

This is a bad thing? Wouldn't that work in favor of Minneapolis-St. Paul where they would outbid their top retail competitors for tech talent?

What rubbed you wrong with ATL?

"Decent mass transit" huh...