My cynical side says that this is a feature, not a bug - a litmus test to see whether or not the selected city will be politically pliable under Amazon's significant financial leverage.

Any city that can't pass (or force through) favorable legislation isn't one that Amazon would want to choose long-term anyway, especially viewed in the context of their relationships with local governments in Seattle [0]. The key point here is that this is a descriptive feature that's hard to ask about, but easy to test for.

0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogervaldez/2018/07/31/good-new...

Yeah, my guess is that the principal function of HQ2 is to increase negotiating leverage with Seattle.

Not unlike Apple bullying Cupertino. They got their huge HQ without much alteration.

Speaking of Cupertino, right near there, a huge battle to allow I think 1,000 units replacing a dead shopping mall. All the usual complaints of traffic.

So 1000 apartments would have intolerable traffic, but 25,000 people in one building won't, seemed to be the argument.

This whole charade is to increase the negotiating leverage with the city they selected long ago.