Take a city like San Antonio. Austin is 80 miles north. Amazon puts HQ2 in the northern suburbs and suddenly you have a major tech corridor along I-35 that will bring growth and investment along with it, bridging the two cities ala San Francisco-San Jose-Berkeley. You would have a similar effect with Milwaukee and Chicago. Sometimes a city becomes so outgrown and gentrified (like Seattle, hence the new HQ) it makes sense to set up shop nearby.

The next best thing is they set up HQ in southern Austin or northern Chicago (both shortlisted cities), and those cities benefit from residual investment.

I can definitely think of worse places than San Marcos. Though being outside Austin proper means giving up anything remotely resembling usable public transit. And in all honesty, Austin could be reasonably characterized as outgrown and gentrified already.

Plus, SA has already played this game. It got them Rackspace. Which, uh, could maybe be going better.

Rackspace is one example of that business, but Amazon is not going anywhere. And there is STILL a lot of space all around San Antonio (far west, anything east) as well as New Braunfels and even (if Amazon spent the $$$ to get land) plenty of space within a mile or two of downtown for a large campus.

I've thought for a while that commuter rail lines:

Along the freeways: 35, 10, 281, 151

Between big retail spots: Downtown, Quarry, Rim, Stone Oak, 1604/Bandera, Forum

Big Business: Rackspace, USAA, Downtown (again), Amazon, Lackland AFB, Kelly AFB, Brooks

And new parking areas near big residential centers: Bandera/Tezel, Helotes, Boerne, Stone Oak, Great Northwest, Brooks City Base

Along with parks renovation, school improvements on the South Side and small business incentives would make San Antonio the best place to live in the country.

There's a lot of potential here.

San Antonio can't even build a street-level rail line for the densest areas without politics getting in the way and halting it. Until that changes, San Antonio is likely to be Our City Of Lots Of Potential for decades to come.

Personally, I wouldn't move back without massive densification of the "urban" core. Right now the place is a massive suburb where getting by without a car is impossible.

I don't know the details of street rail - but I would say that if you wanted to, you could live anywhere between southtown and Alta Vista without a car, if you could also work there. And you can get across the city with Lyft and uber if you want to go elsewhere.

I won't argue with your qualms on local government.

I lived in Southtown. Right at South Alamo and Flores. I needed a car to be able to grocery shop and get to work. A 10-15 minute drive to the office was anywhere between a one-hour and two-hour bus ride.

In practical terms, it would have been workable if my office had been along the Riverwalk. Otherwise, not really. SA's public transit isn't usable for white-collar professionals in most cases.

I had Dell in mind (being located north in Round Rock) in mind. I have friends in Austin and most enjoy living closer to downtown, and I guess commuting sucks there going north, so heading south seems like a logical choice to build a HQ.

Besides Rackspace they have a bunch of defense contractors and USAA, but little else I believe.

That's a fairly accurate characterization of San Antonio. The talent pool is somewhat limited and often very specialized. The city is sprawling, so public transit is a bit lacking. SAT isn't really a major international airport, so most major destinations require changing planes at a bigger airport.

It could be argued that UTSA is starting to count as a major university, with recent expansion and investments. But the CS program has yet to really prove itself.

They also don't want to do what the auto manufacturers did and make the host city completely dependent on them for the local economy.

Shreveport suffered quite a bit after the GM plant closure and drop in oil prices -- being so aligned to one sector was not in Shreveport's best interests.

Funny story. By coincidence, San Antonio is really proud of its Toyota plant.