Amazon is looking at multiple sites in every metro listed. It just so happens that the DC metro spans 3 different municipalities which is why they show up 3 times. Austin needs corporate HQs of big companies. Dell is private but you could consider it Austin's only Fortune 500 company. These companies act as tentpoles to the local economy by providing a massive amount of jobs that aren't contingent on the city economy unlike most other businesses. Corporate bases also are big investors in the city they occupy. A lot of Houston's museums, theaters etc. come from donations from big companies and the rich people that work at those companies. A lot of the rich people that live in Austin are retired or their main business interests are somewhere else. In the spoiler tag is a screenshot of the top 10 employers in Austin. Our biggest employer is HEB and that's not corporate jobs. This should worry people because grocery stores are the next big target by online consumer shopping. Spoiler
But the site options are only part of each proposal. There's also "the deal" (subsidies, tax breaks, perks, etc.), which is probably singular for each proposal. DC area has three different overall deals to offer, which is different from one city offering one deal with a few site options.
I thought Denver was the front runner according to a lot of people a few months ago...now it seems like a dark horse. What changed?
Austin's transportation infrastructure is in dire straights. To me that's what is holding them back. Terrible mass transit and a road network that hasn't adjusted to its growth. Add in a company like Amazon and the whole transportation system will melt down. I honestly think Microsoft got it right with their Fargo campus. Instead of recreating the size of Redmond, they have a much smaller (but still reasonably large) campus in Fargo, North Dakota that has plenty of room to grow and scale with little to no transportation problems, and a low cost of living that helps Microsoft lower their own cost of operations. And it's almost impossible to have a housing crisis as land is almost unlimited. As a bonus, the cold weather dramatically lowers their server cooling costs in the winter. Recruiting can be hard so it does ultimately limit how large the workforce can become but to me that's a smarter play than trying to recreate the Amazon Seattle campus. It still baffles me that American corporations have become infatuated with relocating to cities when for the longest time they did the opposite. It has always been cheaper to operate in smaller towns. I realize all of the insane tax benefits being offered to Amazon offset all of this but I hope companies start to look at smaller towns and cities again.
I guess it just depends on what kind of Austin you want: Austin where people can live, and work and...as it was... or New Austin where nobody can afford to live within 20 miles of downtown. Everybody wants the "greatest music city in the world!!!" or whatever, but none of those musicians can afford to live in Austin anymore.
I think most people here in Denver also don't want it. The city is already growing too quickly to keep up with everything, we need a massive infrastructure investment as it is. This city isn't built for the amount of people we already have.
As a senior software guy in Austin, I'm really hoping Amazon comes in and helps drive up the cost of senior software guys.
I hope you already own a house because if Amazon comes, Austin's already ridiculous housing market will turn into the Bay Area's.
How fast will this happen? Lol. I already own close enough to downtown. Happy to get massive appreciation, sell and move somewhere else smaller.
Amen. A lot has been written locally about the hard time musicians are having finding affordable housing, and I believe it. Our house has gone up in value a hell of a lot the last few years. While the place is paid for, our property taxes keep going up. Not much due to my advanced age (ha ha! at least there's some advantage to it), but I can easily imagine the problems others are having with them. And East Austin? Prices are skyrocketing. A good place to invest in property 5 years ago. Probably still a good area, but only relative to the parts of Austin that have been booming for years. I can certainly see the advantages a huge plum like Amazon could give the local and regional economies, but does Austin really need it? I don't think so, not in my opinion. We can't manage the growth we have now.
A few pages of insightful comments about the city I live in. Then right at the end a D&D type post of a dig on a social and welfare issue. Great job
