The whole HQ2 beauty pageant was a sham because no matter what incentives, Amazon ended up picking the two most obvious cities outside Seattle and SF! You don’t need incentives to pick DC and NY. You pick them because only those cities have 25,000 tech workers to hire! This was never going to happen in any other city.

People were angry because many had hoped Amazon would rescue rust belt cities or create a tech renaissance in those regions by being a strong magnet for talent. They didn’t. Instead they picked NYC and DC/Arlington.