Most New Yorkers would tell you NY dodged a bullet by not accepting Amazon's corporate BS.
P.S. NYC is far from "the most desirable place in the US". Even as someone who loves the place, I can clearly tell you that most people and companies don't want to be in NYC.
We need elites whose goal is to help their fellow Americans, not rootless capitalists willing to sell out their countrymen for profit. The goal of business is not to make money, it’s to enrich the people.
We're fine paying a premium and entrenching in ecosystems like the Bay, NYC, ATX, and Seattle. And in a vertical like cybersecurity (which is mine), going where the talent matters and that's largely the Bay/NYC/ATX/Seattle, Tel Aviv, Prague, Warsaw, BLR, and Hyderabad now.
I'm not going to hire subpar talent in Georgia or North Carolina and deal with shitty local politicos - CA, NY, TX, and WA are easier jurisdictions with much more established talent pools.
Finally, a lot of the software protecting us from the Iranians as we speak were developed by Israeli companies like Wiz.
As someone in the room when those decisions were/are made, pretty much.
Additionally, when the COVID recession began (before the stimulus package) most employers were laying off employees on work visas or giving them the option to open and expand offices in their home country.
A lot of senior Indian and Polish Googlers took the offer, and that's how you saw the massive Google expansion in India and Poland over the past few years.
Additionally, the Indian, Polish, Israeli, Romanian, and other governments are giving massive subsidizes to attract GCCs, while states like NC and GA which used to offer subsidizes to open offices in RTP became much less responsive and inefficient due to domestic politics (turns out it's easier for local politicans to be elected on culture war topics instead of tech hub expansion).
I can pick up a phone right now and get connected with senior bureaucrats in Czechia, Poland, and even the UK and India in a day if I offer to open a $20M R&D hub - most US states don't do that anymore.
Edit: can't reply
> For better or for worse, the most desirable places in the US not only refuse to participate in the race to the bottom anymore
Absolutely, but tbf, you don't really need subsidizes to attract business in an already established hub becuase the ecosystem already exists and the risks and mitigation strategies are well understood.
A subsidy helps when I am entering a new or unknown ecosystem to mitigate risk.
Additionally, local governments in the major hubs like NYC (even under Mamdani) and SF are fairly responsive to business needs and requests.
This is why I keep harping that in the world we live in today, American SWEs need to live in the major tech hubs because the density of employers and opportunities is significant, which reduces risks of becoming structurally unemployed as a SWE.