My guess is that Amazon isn't _seriously_ considering all 20 cities equally.

Instead, they privately already have 2 or 3 particular cities in mind and the other 18 cities are just there for negotiating leverage for the 2 they really want. The problem is that the cities themselves don't know if they're "really in contention" or just "disposable chess pieces".

Again, that's just my guess.

I agree. Nobody seriously thinks they are going to pick Miami.

My favorite part of the Miami story is the argument that Miami has affordable housing. Amazon is pretty much infamous for sending rents near their offices soaring through the roof.

Got affordable housing in your metro? Amazon can fix that!

Or you could add more supply.

The amount of money flowing through Amazon in an already-densely built city would quickly swamp any possible expansion. Prices will rise.

In larger cities, even amazon money wouldn't have too much an effect.

Seattle is a pretty large city. It definitely had an extremely large effect.

As I understand it from stories people told me when I lived there for a few years, South Lake Union was a lower-rent district near the lake where younger single people lived that weren't attracted to the lifestyle on Capitol Hill but didn't make enough to live downtown proper or on Queen Anne or Magnolia hills. Now those people commute 45 minutes on the train from Everett or wait in traffic coming south on the heavily congested I-5 or west across the heavily congested Lake Washington Bridges.

Seattle metro is a little larger than the city of Chicago. It is not a large city by any metric.

Seattle is large by the metric of population (it's the 18th most populous city in the US). San Francisco actually has smaller land area, and higher population - but I definitely consider San Francisco to be a large city.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Which city under consideration is densely built?

Jeff Bezos grew up in Miami, and his dad is Cuban. Miami has the largest Cuban (and Cuban-descent) community. If Bezos wants to give back to the place that made him who he is today, Miami is a solid contender. I know you don't drive a business with emotions and nostalgia, oh wait... He's already doing it with Blue Origin, we love you Bezos!

(note to Bezos: Miami building should be on stilts)

He also spent years in Houston. He's moved around a lot.

Not sure if any of his childhood stomping grounds are going to get much favoritism.

Agree. I lived in Miami and the tech scene there is a joke. Unless they want to make some Latin America play there is nothing to gain from there. The fact it’s even on the list makes me suspect that is something they are looking to do.

I'd be willing to bet that Miami is a favorite amongst at least a couple of people actually making the decision. Miami is the capitol of and gateway to Latin America, and Latin America has enormous potential for growth of ecommerce.

The thing about software is that you don't have to be physically near the markets you serve. Writing software in Miami would provide zero advantage for serving this market.

The thing about Amazon is that they do a hell of a lot more than just write software.

But they need logistics centers in those areas, NOT a headquarters.

They also need product managers, vendor managers, inventory managers, analysts, planners, forecasters, operations managers, customer service agents, human resources, legal, research scientists, security, marketing, IT, financial operations, as well as the world's most overweight and useless middle management layer ever seen.

Even in Seattle, programmers make up well less than half of Amazon's personnel.

You sound like you have absolutely no clue how Amazon is run, but really don't like them so you go threw in some unfriendly, unfounded assumptions on top of your ignorance.

Partially correct; I don't like them, but it is precisely because I know too much about how Amazon is run.

Judging by your recent comments, you've been working there for about a couple of weeks at best. Get back to me when you've been around long enough for your RSUs to vest.

plus direct access to ports on the atlantic..

With the added bonus of it being completely underwater within 50 years!

And direct exposure to hurricanes for the parts that are not underwater!

Previous employer had an office in St. Pete's. Hurricane shutdowns are a non-zero cost.

That's why I find it surprising that Miami is even on the list at all. Most other cities immediately have an advantage over them because they don't have to contend with hurricanes and tropical storms on a regular basis.

Meh, the Dutch solved that problem hundreds of years ago.

The Dutch didn't have to worry about living over porous limestone that floods directly out of the ground (sea walls or not).

They also have a completely different mentality about the environment.

Yeah, there's funny concentration of options right by - and including - Washington D.C.

That's just because the DC area is so spread out. You don't really have to be in DC "proper" to get the benefits of the area. Which I think is different than a lot of other major metro areas. You see the same thing with New York paired with Newark.

An Amazon HQ2 in Northern Virginia would cripple the already strained road infrastructure, especially given Metro's existing difficulties. Dulles seems like an obvious choice given the tech corridor and proximity to IA but 28 and the toll road are incredibly crowded as it is.

Theres 3 different local / state governments to entice competition from with that setup, and montgomery county just lost Discovery which was a huge employer who they were wooing with a serious comp package. So you throw a spender like that into a competitive situation and you might get some insane offer.

Yep, this will start yet another bidding war on our area. For the last couple years we've had a constant back and forth of each region trying to claim the new FBI headquarters.

They probably decided way before announcing the RFP process.

I agree it's a massive list to have said they've whittled it down much, but I can see some misses. St Louis isn't there, Detroit isn't there, Tampa and Orlando aren't there, Milwaukee isn't there, Phoenix isn't there, Houston isn't there, Minneapolis isn't there, Baltimore isn't there.

They put out far too big of a list of candidates, but they have apparently ruled out just as many major metro areas.

I'm fairly certain that given Target already has a hold of Minneapolis, there's no way they'd allow Amazon to move in on their turf.

It was a major consideration from the standpoint of local and state government here. With both Target and Best Buy headquartered here, it would have ruffled a lot of feathers if Amazon would have received a bunch of handouts that homegrown companies weren't getting, especially since Amazon is completely dominating them both. There are also statutory limits on what incentives the MN state government can provide, on the order of 7 figures and maybe some limited tax breaks; I'm sure it didn't move the needle at all.

Those limits didn't matter when Mayo called in 2013[1]. There's one reason Amazon didn't get any worthwhile tax breaks. The governor's sons own a bunch of Target shares.

Amazon was offered $100 per employee. The total package was smaller than St. Paul offered Cray to move 200 employees. And much smaller than the $12k per employee Best Buy got for their HQ.

[1] http://www.startribune.com/rochester-mayo-clinic-celebrate-5...

Unless Amazon buys Target. Then they've got a whole corporate infrastructure already in place.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/amazon-will-buy-target-in-20...

The governor's father co-founded Target and his sons still own a large share. The subsidy per Amazon employee in the Minneapolis HQ2 bid was $100 compared to $12,000 when the Best Buy HQ was built and $150,000 when the new Vikings stadium was built.

> Houston isn't there,

I had that somber realization too. Houston has more problems on its mind than bankrolling Amazon's real estate deals.

I'm pretty sure this process was something like 'hey Alexa, what are the 20 largest metropolitan areas more then 500 miles from Seattle.' followed by an email to each one asking how much they would pay for Amazon to come to town.

But that's why I'm not in public relations. :-)