Because they want the most bang for their buck. This is not a goodwill gesture by Amazon, this is them looking to squeeze as much as they can out of their next location.

Well Amazon isn't a charity; why would you expect them to care about anything other than their own criteria?

For the same reason my company used to, I'm retired, sponsor the local little league sports teams - even though the audiences were absolutely never going to be clients?

Sometimes, you do the right thing, just because it's the right thing to do. It wasn't an investment. It was just giving back to the community that housed us.

I guess you could argue that it improved employee morale? I don't think any of our employees even had kids on the team.

I'm not denying that companies do charitable things, but I think where to build your headquarters is much more fundamental than whether to give money to a kids' sports team. Would your former company have made decisions about the parameters of their core business based on the interests of Little League?

I'm not convinced that their office location is a core business decision. Wherever they go, people will also go. They could HQ in Mozambique and still attract top talent.

I'm sure Amazon would be happy to sponsor a little league team. Sponsoring a city in the same way is to then be responsible for people who don't even work for you. It's much better for Amazon to stake its flag in a city that is self reliant, but also fertile for new blood.

Microsoft and Boeing anchor Seattle next to Amazon, that makes Seattle a very stable and fertile place. If Amazon moved to, say, St. Louis? What else is there to balance it out? Budweiser?

Is there a good reason to believe that picking a city that doesn't meet their criteria would be good for the city? If amazon brought a new HQ and 50k jobs into any smaller city or a city with declining growth, it's a crapshoot as to whether it would improve the city or just turn it into a "company town". A city where all the best-paying most desireable jobs are all at with the same company is not a healthy city.

Most of their criteria aren't that flexible. Nobody is going to reroute interstates or move airports for Amazon. They might be able to get a transit line extended or a new station added to an existing line. Population/education might be negotiable if there is a site with awesome transportation.

Cell coverage would certainly be fixable, though, if the local officials commit to reasonable planning approvals, and can convince carriers to play ball.

> Cell coverage would certainly be fixable, though, if the local officials commit to reasonable planning approvals, and can convince carriers to play ball.

Well, there's the Kindle Whispernet thing. I'm in Australia and was impressed when the first Kindles came out and "they just have 3G, no configuration/questions asked - and Wikipedia is free." The high-level involvement and agreements required for worldwide "just works" connectivity (which is not technically amazing, but politically impressive) means that fixing local cellular would likely be a shoo-in and require no drawn-out anything. Chances are the HQ building(s) will have cell towers factored in at the blueprint level.

Because we don't live in an economic system that allows for it. Amazon and every other capitalistic enterprise always cares more about profits than the wellness of a city. "If we do it, someone else won't, and they'll win!"

Because ... They are not charity? If there is a market for Amazon's offer, they surely can pick the one that best suits them. And the line seems getting really long.

Why haven't you done all manner of things to improve the world at your expense? How much are you donating to Harvey relief? Why haven't you sold your gas car to buy an electric? Etc.